michael wirth ceo Chevron

mbs dinner 11 25

TRUMP PAL FROM TV

9 25

ICYMI: Trump’s Big Oil Donors Are Cashing In | Climate Power

Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published a piece highlighting the Trump administration’s closeness with oil and gas executives — who donated tens of millions of dollars to re-elect the president — and the fulfillment of their wishlist. This comes after Republicans voted to kill clean energy jobs and raise utility rates for millions of Americans.

The administration is not only capitulating to the requests of the executives by opening wilderness land and federal waters to drilling and axing environmental protections, but also has installed at least a dozen former Big Oil executives and lobbyists across the administration. Industry CEOs now enjoy direct phone calls and personal access to the Oval Office, while American families are left with higher prices, dirtier air, and a future mortgaged to Big Oil’s profits.

The Wall Street Journal: Oil Tycoons Bet Big on Trump. It’s Paying Off.*

{“Oil billionaire Harold Hamm high-fivedDonald Trumpon election night as results trickled in at the Mar-a-Lago watch party.*}:

Hamm, founder of family-owned oil-and-gas company Continental Resources, had good reason to celebrate. He and other oilmen haddonated tens of millions of dollarsto help re-elect Trump, betting that his pro-fossil-fuel agenda would stave off a long-term shift away from fossil fuels and keep the country hooked on gasoline.

That wager is paying off. The Trump administration is opening swaths of wilderness land and federal waters to drilling, approving new terminals to export natural gas and proposing to ax environmental regulations, including an Obama-era rule used to curb emissions from power plants, tailpipes and oil-and-gas production. His One Big Beautiful Bill is expected tohobble renewable-energy projectsandstunt the adoption of electric vehicles.

Oil executives now enjoy extraordinary access to the White House. Trump has taken to phoning oil bosses whose TV appearances he enjoys, such asChevronCEO Mike Wirth, according to White House and industry officials.

“No doubt, this administration understands how important energy is,” said Toby Rice, CEO of natural-gas producerEQT. Rice andExxon MobilCEO Darren Woods sat at Trump’s table during a Julyenergy summit in Pittsburgh.

So far, however, the industry’s policy wins haven’t flowed through to the companies’ bottom lines. Trump’s shifting positions on trade, coupled with an increase in crude supplies globally, have depressed oil prices,cost energy firms billions of dollars in stock-market valueand contributed to layoffs across the industry. And new tariffs on steel and aluminum are making drilling more expensive.

U.S. oil prices are hovering near $62 a barrel—below the break-even point for many of the industry’s smaller players—down from about $76 the week Trump took office. Yet some oil bosses see the turbulence as a price worth paying to see the president implement their agenda.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the oil-and-gas industry is the backbone of the American economy and the source of “millions of good-paying jobs,” and that the president is delivering on his promise to “make America energy dominant again.”

Trump’s unabashed support for the industry has left environmentalists aghast. They contend the administration’s moves will translate into higher energy prices for consumers, fuel climate change and make the U.S. less competitive with other nations that are embracing renewable energy….. (Read the resthere)*”*

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forbes

Here’s Everyone Who Attended Trump's Dinner With Saudi's Prime Minister

Billionaire attendees worth a combined $719 billion, as well as other business executives and the world’s highest-paid athlete, were among the high-profile attendees at President Donald Trump’s black-tie dinner for Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on Tuesday night.

President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are seated for a dinner in the East Room of the White House.

Key Facts

Some of the world’s richest people —including Elon Musk and Steve Schwarzmanof Blackstone—were among the attendees.

Billionaire Jensen Huang and Lisa Su, the CEOs of chip giants Nvidia and AMD, attended months after both companies signed deals to supply their advanced semiconductors to AI company Humain—which the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF owns.

Tech and finance billionaires Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, Tim Cook of Apple and Vlad Tenev of Robinhood also attended.

David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance Corporation and son of mega billionaire Larry Ellison, was there amid reports the Saudi sovereign fund could partly fund his company’s bid to acquire rival Warner Bros. Discovery (the company has since denied the claim).

Also among the invitees were General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and Chevron CEO Mike Wirth.

Cristiano Ronaldo, who signed the world’s most expensive soccer contract with Saudi soccer club Al-Nassr two years ago and has surpassed $1 billion in career earnings, lended his star power to the dinner.

Have Musk And Trump Made Up?

It’s unclear. The dinner was the first time Musk has been at the White House since he left his role as a special government employee heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in May. He then publicly feuded with Trump, but his attendance is the latest sign pointing to thawing tension between them as Musk’s threat to start his breakaway “America Party” appears stalled.

What Do We Know About Ronaldo’s Ties To Saudi Arabia?

Ronaldo, the legendary soccer star who tops the list of all-time goal scorers, was at the dinner. In 2023, Ronaldo joined Saudi soccer club Al-Nassr on a record €200 million ($231 million) per year deal, amid Riyadh’s push to become a global sporting hub. Al-Nassr is primarily owned by PIF, and the Saudi Crown Prince serves as the fund’s chairman. Earlier this year, Ronaldo signed an extension deal that will keep the 40-year-old at the club till 2027. He ranked number one on Forbes’ list of the World’s Highest Paid Athletes of 2025, and he is projected to earn an estimated $275 million this year.

What Did Trump Say About Ronaldo?

In his speech at the dinner, Trump mentioned Ronaldo by name and said, “My son is a big fan of Ronaldo. And Baron got to meet him, and I think he respects his father a little bit more now, just the fact that I introduced you.”

Who Else Was At The Dinner?

FIFA President Gianni Infantino was also present after cultivating ties with both Trump and the Saudi crown prince over the past few years. Infantino has defended his relationship with the president, calling it “crucial,” and has played down concerns that Trump’s immigration crackdown will affect international fan attendance at the FIFA World Cup in the U.S. next year. The FIFA boss has also defended the decision to award Saudi Arabia the hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup, despite accusations that FIFA was enabling sportswashing.

Forbes Valuations

Musk is the richest person in the world with an almost $468 billion net worth as of Wednesday, according to Forbes estimates. Two of the other attendees are also among the world's 100 richest people: No. 8 Huang ($161.6 billion) and No. 36 Steve Schwarzman ($43.9 billion). Karp is worth $15.2 billion, Armstrong is worth $11.2 billion, Benioff is worth $8.6 billion, Tenev is worth $6.5 billion and Tim cook has a $2.6 billion valuation. Su, the only female executive in attendance, is worth $1.5 billion.

Soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, right, listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a dinner for Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the East Room of the White House.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su were among several high profile tech executives at the dinner.

Elon Musk sits during a dinner with President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Other prominent attendees included Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison and Dell CEO Michael Dell.

Recipient	Total	From Individualsimore info	From Organizationimore info	Typeimore info
Senate Leadership Fund	$4,500,000	$0	$4,500,000	Outside Group
Congressional Leadership Fund	$2,750,000	$0	$2,750,000	Carey
GOPAC	$400,000	$0	$400,000	527
Center Forward Cmte	$200,000	$0	$200,000	Outside Group
National Republican Senatorial Cmte	$172,798	$172,798	$0	Political Party
Harris, Kamala	$170,652	$170,652	$0	Candidate (D-PRES)
Governing Majority Fund	$100,000	$0	$100,000	Outside Group
Trump, Donald	$59,020	$59,020	$0	Candidate (R-PRES)
Republican National Cmte	$52,747	$52,747	$0	Political Party
Our Values PAC II	$50,000	$0	$50,000	Outside Group

---

ggl 11 25

Donor Lookup • OpenSecrets}:

OpenSecrets

https://www.opensecrets.org › donor-lookup › results](https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=michael+wirth&order=desc&sort=D)

WIRTH, MICHAEL K SAN RAMON, CA 94583, CHEVRON CORPORATION, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, 09-06-2024, $208, Chevron Corp, Federal. Money to PACs, WIRTH, ...

[### Chevron CEO says reviewing political donations after U.S. ...

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com › article › business › chevron-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/business/chevron-ceo-says-reviewing-political-donations-after-us-capitol-assault-idUSKBN29H2IP/)

Jan 12, 2021 — Chevron is reviewing political donations after last week's violent invasion of the US capitol, Chief Executive Mike Wirth said on Tuesday.

[### Chevron Gave More Than $1 Million to Lawmakers Who ...

KQED

https://www.kqed.org › news › chevron-gave-more-tha...](https://www.kqed.org/news/11856920/chevron-gave-more-than-a-million-dollars-to-lawmakers-who-voted-to-overturn-the-presidential-election)

Feb 2, 2021 — Chevron has donated more than a million dollars to Republican members of Congress who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Missing: wirth ‎| Show results with: wirth

[### Chevron Profile: Summary

OpenSecrets

https://www.opensecrets.org › orgs › chevron › summary](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/chevron/summary?id=D000000015)

Top Recipients ; Trump, Donald, $59,020, $59,020, $0, Candidate (R-PRES) ; Republican National Cmte, $52,747, $52,747, $0, Political Party ...

[### ICYMI: Trump's Big Oil Donors Are Cashing In

Climate Power

https://climatepower.us › News](https://climatepower.us/news/icymi-trumps-big-oil-donors-are-cashing-in/)

Sep 8, 2025 — Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published a piece highlighting the Trump administration's closeness with oil and gas ...

Missing: gop ‎| Show results with: gop

[### Major corporate interests and megadonors gave $239 ...

NBC News

https://www.nbcnews.com › trump-administration › maj...](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/major-corporate-interests-megadonors-gave-239-million-fund-trumps-inau-rcna202074)

Apr 21, 2025 — President Donald Trump's inaugural committee raised $239 million, a new fundraising report shows, buoyed by million-dollar contributions ...

[### Executives due at gas price hearing gave $1 million to ...

Roll Call

https://rollcall.com › 2022/04/05 › executives-due-at-ga...](https://rollcall.com/2022/04/05/executives-due-at-gas-price-hearing-gave-1-million-to-parties-candidates/)

Apr 5, 2022 — One CEO called to testify about high gas prices at a hearing Wednesday gave $469000 since 1993, public records show.

[### Trump gets record donations from big oil but far less than ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › oct › election...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/18/election-trump-oil-gas-fundraising)

Oct 18, 2024 — Republican ex-president has received $14.1m oil and gas industry making it his fourth-biggest source of cash.

Missing: wirth ‎gop

[### List of American Companies that Support President Donald ...

Newsweek

https://www.newsweek.com › american-businesses-supp...](https://www.newsweek.com/american-businesses-supporting-donating-donald-trump-list-2027957)

Feb 7, 2025 — Donald Trump's 2024 presidential bid attracted significant financial backing from a mix of corporate donors, billionaire executives and ...

Missing: wirth ‎| Show results with: wirth

[### Trump's Corporate Favor Factory - Sludge

readsludge.com

https://readsludge.com › 2025/10/29 › trumps-corporat...](https://readsludge.com/2025/10/29/trumps-corporate-favor-factory/)

Oct 29, 2025 — We researched more than 150 top donors to Trump's inauguration fund and White House ballroom to find the government favors they've received ...

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leaving CA?

MSN

After more than 140 years together, Chevron dumped California via text, in a split fueled by snubs, insults, accusations and the lure of a new partner.

Chief Executive Mike Wirth tried to reach Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for more than a week last summer and texted him, hoping to get the governor on the phone. He wanted to talk to Newsom about the company’s plans to move its global headquarters from San Ramon, Calif., to Houston.

We’re about to make an announcement. I’d like to tell you before you read about it.

Newsom’s reply was, essentially, I don’t need to talk about it. I’m good.

Wirth told Newsom over texts that the company was about to make public its move to a more fossil-friendly state. The CEO called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to tell him personally. Ecstatic, the Republican governor, who had courted Chevron for years, asked if the company needed any special help for relocation.

Wirth declined. Moving to Texas, apparently, was reward enough.

On Aug. 2, when Chevron announced its headquarters move, Abbott described Texas, the No. 1 gasoline consumer in the U.S., as Chevron’s “true home.” Newsom responded in an online video accusing Big Oil of price gouging consumers.

Relations between Wirth, CEO of the nation’s second-largest energy company, and Newsom, governor of America’s populous state, had soured over regulatory and legislative efforts intended to combat climate change—displacing internal-combustion engines with electric vehicles, for one.

“Putting bureaucrats in charge of centrally planning key segments of the economy hasn’t worked in other social states,” Wirth said in a Nov. 1 call with investors. “I doubt it will be any different in California.”

California has acted more aggressively than any other state to steer consumers from fossil fuels, including a state ban on the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035, as well as rules that oil companies blame for the state’s higher gas prices. EVs now account for more than a quarter of new car sales in California.

“Chevron has a future in clean energy in California. They can join us in our steady, long-term transition to a state powered by clean energy,” said Daniel Villaseñor, a spokesman for the governor’s office. Newsom recalled his text exchanges with Wirth last summer as cordial, his office said.

Disagreement over policies turned personal in September 2023, when Newsom seemed to accuse Wirth of having a hand in one of California’s worst disasters.

Invoking a 2018 wildfire that left 85 people dead in Paradise, Calif., Newsom said Wirth had invested far more in shareholder payouts than in developing low-carbon energy. That belied Chevron’s promises to lower carbon emissions, Newsom said. The consequences of the company’s alleged deceit, he said, were “incalculable in terms of the dollars, the lives lost, the funerals, the dead bodies in Paradise.”

Newsom made his pointed remarks during the announcement of a lawsuit against Chevron and other large oil companies, alleging climate-change deception. Villaseñor said the governor wasn’t accusing Chevron or its executives “of anything more than failing to confront the realities of the climate crisis.”

Chevron didn’t respond to Newsom’s remarks.

Before the Nov. 5 election, Newsom’s testy relations with the oil industry might have lost him little political capital. Following Trump’s win, some Democratic lawmakers recognized that the state’s higher energy costs have become a liability, political consultants for both parties said.

When the Los Angeles-area wildfires erupted last month, Newsom made brief references linking oil companies to the disaster that killed 29 people. The California governor thanked Gov. Abbott on X for lending firefighters, engines and equipment: “Red, blue, republican, democrat—in moments like this we come together.”

Political consultants say Newsom appears to be weighing a role as a leader of the Democratic Party. He held a call with Democratic allies the day after the presidential election and has positioned himself as a Trump adversary.

Newsom has now turned his focus from opposing Trump to managing the wildfire recovery. On Wednesday, the governor met with President Trump in the Oval Office to discuss federal disaster relief.

California has more than Chevron headquarters at stake. The company, which operates two of the largest oil refineries in the state, has considered the possibility of ceasing production. That would raise gas prices further for California’s more than 27 million drivers. Chevron refineries make up a third of the state’s gasoline-production capacity.

Any decision to close or repurpose refineries would depend on whether California imposes more regulations, among other factors, said Andy Walz, who runs the company’s refining, pipeline and chemical businesses. California’s stringent fuel-quality specifications, initiated to curb harmful emissions, make gasoline more costly to produce compared with other states, industry analysts said.

Shrinking supplies and higher gas prices, while a pain for drivers, might be fine with state regulators charged with protecting the environment.

“Policies that keep average prices low may result in more driving, and hence, more pollution,” the California Energy Commission said in a 2024 report.

Why California?

Like other big breakups, the California-Chevron split figures to be costly for both sides.

If Chevron decides to sell its century-old fuel-making plants, it will be tough to find a buyer for the properties, which encompass nearly 4,000 acres in Northern and Southern California. Among the obstacles: environmental liabilities and a shrinking pool of buyers.

“We used to have competitors,” Walz said. “They’re gone.”

Demand for gasoline in California last year was about 10% lower than in 2019, largely because of an increase in the number of EVs on the road and more people working from home, according to the state energy commission.

Energy-industry analysts said regulations, in addition to softening demand, have depressed oil exploration in California. More than 75% of the state’s oil in 2023 was imported from Alaska and abroad, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Ecuador.

In 1876, wildcatters drilled California’s first successful oil well in the Santa Susana Mountains, north of Los Angeles. The discovery gave birth to Chevron and kicked off an oil boom that helped power the state economy for more than a century and kept gas prices low for decades.

California has consistently higher gas prices than every state but Hawaii.

Newsom and other state officials blame the oil industry. Chevron posted signs at gas stations saying, “California lawmakers are driving up gas prices,” and, in a message linked to QR codes, urged drivers to complain directly to lawmakers.

“They weren’t prepared to take accountability for their own actions, and they were blaming us,” Walz said of the PR campaign. “That’s when Chevron felt like it was time for us to start talking.”

Chevron and other oil companies opposed a new California law that, among other things, gives regulators the authority to require refiners to keep their storage tanks stocked at certain levels, which lawmakers hope will limit spikes in pump prices because of supply shortages.

Statewide, the number of operating refineries has dwindled to 14 last year from 40 in 1983, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In October, two days after Newsom signed the bill into law, Phillips 66 closed a Southern California refinery. Company CEO Mark Lashier said at the time that the decision was based broadly on shrinking demand and state policies to discourage fossil fuels.

“We expected California to be a pretty challenging refining market going forward,” Lashier said.

The state’s oil production peaked in early 1986 at more than a million barrels a day. In November, the tally was about 279,000 barrels a day, the lowest figure since 1981 and largely attributed to aging oil fields. Only a handful of drilling-rig crews are hunting for new finds.

“Why deal with California when you could go to Texas or New Mexico? You only have so much capital and so much time in the day,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston. “Given the regulatory environment in California, I would be investing outside the state.”

High price

Many candidates supported by Chevron and other oil companies during state elections have lost races in recent years, weakening the company’s once-considerable political influence. For the first time, a majority of Democrats who ran in state elections in 2023 refused campaign money from oil companies, according to the nonprofit California Environmental Voters.

The Trump administration, however, is expected to be a powerful industry ally. Four days after Trump returned to the Oval Office, his administration said in court filings that the EPA would review its decision to grant California a waiver that effectively allowed the state to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035 and set more stringent vehicle-emission standards.

California Assemblymember Gregg Hart, who introduced the bill last year, acknowledged that oil companies hate the law. California, he said, is trying to increase the number of people buying EVs, while also providing affordable gas for conventional cars, goals that appear at odds. “We’re just going to have to try to find a way to make this all work,” Hart said.

At the California legislature’s Dec. 2 swearing-in ceremony, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said California would continue to lead the nation on climate change, “but not on the backs of poor and working people, not with taxes or fees for programs that don’t work, and not by blocking housing and critical infrastructure projects.”

In recent years, Newsom has avoided oil lobbyists and rarely entertained oil executives. Oil companies say Newsom’s allegations about industry deception and price gouging have demoralized employees and made it harder to recruit employees.

Catherine Reheis-Boyd, a longtime head of California oil lobbyists, said she never had any trouble establishing a relationship with past governors. During a 2022 Newsom trip to Florida, in connection with a possible presidential bid, her organization, the Western States Petroleum Association, spent nearly $1 million on newspaper, radio and TV ads criticizing the governor for California’s high energy prices. Newsom was furious, according to people familiar with the matter.

State’s energy agencies and oil executives, including at Chevron, say they are trying to work together to keep California’s energy supplies steady and affordable, despite their policy disagreements.

It appears too late to repair relations with the departing oil giant, which last summer had about 2,000 employees at its headquarters in California. Chevron follows moves by Tesla, SpaceX, Oracle and Hewlett Packard from California to Texas.

“Look, we want to be there,” Walz said. “We want to stay, but it’s tough, OK?”

On Jan. 27, Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener and another state lawmaker introduced a bill that would allow homeowners and insurers to hold oil-and-gas companies liable for damages stemming from climate-related disasters, such as wildfires.

“By forcing the fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis to pay their fair share, we can help stabilize our insurance market and make the victims of climate disasters whole,” Wiener said.

Newsom’s office said the governor doesn’t typically comment on pending or proposed legislation.

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[[why only one of big 4 out front? CHEVRON

:{https://the:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{intercept.:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{com:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{/2022/05:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{/25/fossil-fuels-disaster-capitalism-russia-ukraine/:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:

BACK IN LATE 2021, as Russian President Vladimir Putin began mobilizing troops at the Ukraine border, the fossil fuel industry got its foot soldiers ready too. With the threat of Russian aggression and subsequent sanctions looming, gas prices were on the rise, and the fossil fuel industry wanted the public to know that there was only one culprit: climate policy.

“There are a lot of factors at play as to why energy prices are surging,” Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, or API, :{t:(style="background-color:#ff9900;"):}::{old CNBC:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: at the time. “But certainly one of the key factors is that the Biden administration has made an effort to reduce production in the United States. One of their first acts, for example, was cutting off the Keystone XL pipeline. One of their second acts was cutting up leasing and permitting on federal lands, and then they cut off access to ANWR,” referring to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

He gave roughly the same interview every week for months. On March 7, two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, he repeated it again, telling a CBS reporter, “You know, first they cut off the Keystone XL pipeline. Then they put a moratorium on leasing and permitting on federal lands and on offshore waters. And then they cut off supply from the Alaska natural national wildlife refuge.”

[no lnx]

that’s some consistent messaging! For the record, about 25 percent of fossil fuel drilling happens on public lands; the rest is entirely controlled by private companies. The fossil fuel industry is sitting on at least a decade’s worth of unused leases, so it’s unlikely that a lack of new leases has impacted current production or supply.

The Keystone XL pipeline was intended to transport tar sands oil from Canada to export terminals in the Gulf of Mexico, where two-thirds of it was earmarked for non-U.S. customers. It was nowhere near functional when it was canceled: About 8 percent of the pipeline had been built, and TC Energy, the company behind the project, still needed to find $6.9 billion of the $8 billion construction cost to finish it.

As for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the holy grail for U.S. oil companies, it has been off-limits to oil drilling since 1977. For a brief moment in 2017, the Trump administration reversed that, but no major oil companies — no API members — even bid on leases.These are the only pieces of climate policy Sommers continuously referred to because they’re the only ones the Biden administration has actually managed to pass, but none of them have had any impact on the current supply of domestic oil and gas in the United States or the price at the pump.

But the facts don’t matter if you’re the first one to frame a story and you repeat it often enough.A new report out this week shows that consistent messaging, coordinated messengers, and a massive advertising blitz combined to deliver major policy wins to the fossil fuel industry as early as two weeks from the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“On February 24, within hours of Putin’s invasion, I was just watching these serious patterns emerge,” said Christina Arena, a public relations and climate disinformation expert. Arena worked for the PR firm Edelman when it handled the API account, so she knows a campaign when she sees one. “API and other trade associations were echoing similar talking points immediately, anti-Biden talking points, anti-renewable energy talking points.” That kind of consistency and media training takes months, not days, to prep, she said.

That prompted Arena to reach out to InfluenceMap, a think tank that tracks the influence of corporate lobbying on climate policy. InfluenceMap teamed up with Media Matters for America and Triplecheck to look into what various fossil fuel interests were saying about Russia-Ukraine and how those messages were being amplified. The organizations’ resulting report pinpoints the top messages and messengers, and how they map to big policy wins.

Some of the findings are to be expected. API went big, as did Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The usual suspects amplified the industry’s messaging: Breitbart News, Fox News, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn.All told, API placed 651 Facebook ads from the end of January to April 1, reaching more than 19 million people.On February 24, the day of the invasion, API and its network got busy. “There’s a huge peak where we get to 100 fossil fuel misinformation posts that yielded over5 million likes, comments, and shares,” Arena noted.

[“I think you could call it a disinformation-driven heist of public policy.”

But there are some less expected findings too. After battling gas bans for two years, the gas side of the industry seems to have fully embraced the fact that the climate movement doesn’t see it as its friend anymore. Gas entities that joined the party include the American Gas Association (a trade group for gas utilities), Hess Corp., and Sempra Infrastructure.

The types of messages were also a surprise. After a decade or so of greenwashing, the fossil fuel industry is going full culture war. The report finds three key messages across hundreds of social media posts and media appearances: American fossil fuel production ensures freedom and national security; high gas prices are caused by climate policy, and the solution is more drilling; and climate change is something only liberal “woke” elites care about.

There’s also a push to convince people that some kind of Green New Deal-adjacent policy is in place and that is what’s driving up gas prices. “I think you could call it a disinformation-driven heist of public policy,” Arena said.

And there’s the timeline, and the dividends this campaign has paid to the industry. By mid-March, the Energy Department was starting to grant permits to increase the volume at some liquid natural gas export terminals. “So that’s two weeks maybe from the start of the crisis,” said Faye Holder, the lead author of the InfluenceMap report. “We’ve seen a heavy, heavy use of social media, both in advertising and organic content. And then they’re feeding off of media too. A lot of the things that are retweeted by API, for instance, are Mike Sommers on Fox News.”

By March 25, Biden was announcing a U.S.-European Union liquefied natural gas deal that the Trump administration had tried and failed to get done: 15 billion cubic meters in 2022, with a standing order for 50 billion cubic meters a year until 2030. “That’s just a little over four weeks. That’s a very short interval,” Arena said. “And I feel that interval should alarm lawmakers. It should alarm people in the climate community. That’s disaster capitalism.”

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some lnx

...but there are some less expected findings too. After battling gas bans for two years, the gas side of the industry seems to have fully embraced the fact that the climate movement doesn’t see it as its friend anymore. Gas entities that joined the party include the American Gas Association (a trade group for gas utilities), Hess Corp., and Sempra Infrastructure.

The types of messages were also a surprise. After a decade or so of greenwashing, the fossil fuel industry is going full culture war. The report finds three key messages across hundreds of social media posts and media appearances: American fossil fuel production ensures freedom and national security; high gas prices are caused by climate policy, and the solution is more drilling; and climate change is something only liberal “woke” elites care about.

And there’s the timeline, and the dividends this campaign has paid to the industry. By mid-March, the Energy Department was starting to grant permits to increase the volume at some liquid natural gas export terminals. “So that’s two weeks maybe from the start of the crisis,” said Faye Holder, the lead author of the InfluenceMap report. “We’ve seen a heavy, heavy use of social media, both in advertising and organic content. And then they’re feeding off of media too. A lot of the things that are retweeted by API, for instance, are Mike Sommers on Fox News.”

ref

https://influencemap.org/report/US-Oil-and-Gas-and-the-War-in-Ukraine-19009

How the US oil/gas sector is using the war in Ukraine to undermine Paris-aligned climate policy

See coverage in Agence France-Presse, Forbes Middle East, DeSmog, and The Intercept

This research details an active effort from the US oil and gas industry use the war in Ukraine to advocate for long-standing policy asks relating to the continued expansion of oil and gas. The research looks at the month following the invasion of Ukraine on the 24th February 2022. This has happened across social media, traditional media, public presentations, investor calls, and direct interactions with America’s policymakers. This lobbying behavior mirrors that seen from the oil and gas industry following the COVID-19 crisis.

The industry appears to be using a number of key narratives to push its pro-fossil fuel agenda, many of which appear to include misleading claims or misinformation. These narratives include blaming the Biden Administration's climate policies for the increase in gas prices, calling for the development of more US oil and gas to lower gas prices and increase energy security, promoting LNG as a clean solution to the US's 'allies'.

These narratives are being used to push for a long-term role for oil and fossil gas in the energy mix and appear to be targeted towards specific policy demands. These include advocating for policies which encourage new and/or increased oil and gas production, and rolling back previous climate policy decisions that limited the production of oil and gas or required climate considerations in new projects.

While calling for policies to increase the production of oil and gas, the oil and gas industry continues to actively oppose a number of state level policies designed to reduce the need for fossil fuels. These include opposing fossil gas bans in new buildings and electric vehicle mandates.

---

report

executive Summary :

This research details an active effort from the US oil and gas industry to use the war in Ukraine to advocate for long-standing policy asks relating to the continued expansion of oil and gas. This has happened across social media, traditional media, public presentations, investor calls, and direct interactions with America’s policymakers. This research focuses on the month following the invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022. 

The main actors identified in this briefing are the American Petroleum Institute, American Gas Association, National Association of Manufacturers, US Chamber of Commerce, and Consumer Energy Alliance. The lobbying evidence collected covers letters to policymakers, large social media advertising campaigns, and public statements by CEOs. The latter of which also includes speeches and media comments from company CEOs and presidents such as Mike Wirth from Chevron and Ryan Lance from ConocoPhillips. 

The research identifies several key narratives used by the industry to push a pro-fossil fuel agenda during this period. Some of these narratives, particularly those about the causes of the current crises appear to include misleading claims or elements of misinformation. These narratives include: o That the Biden Administration's climate policies have caused a decrease in the supply of oil and gas, leading to high gas prices. A similar narrative used is that the Biden Administration's policies have undermined US energy independence, making America reliant on foreign oil. Both narratives have been found to be misleading by AFP fact-checker.

o That the way to fix gas prices and increase energy security/independence is to increase the supply of US oil and gas, which can be achieved through favorable government policies.

o That LNG is a clean, low-carbon source of energy that can help transition the energy mix and achieve emissions reduction goals. This claim has previously been regulated against by advertising authorities in the UK for containing misleading claims. Moreover, increasing the production of oil and gas is at odds with the advice of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its latest report "Mitigation of Climate Change".

 InfluenceMap has seen these narratives used by CEOs of major oil and gas companies in the US, particularly during CERAWeek, a major energy conference. For example, Ryan Lance, CEO...

conocoPhillips, stated that “poor energy policy, poor regulatory policy […] rapid push to renewable

energy and a maligning of the of fossil fuel industry" has led to the increase in gas prices.

These narratives have also been heavily pushed on social media. For example, between February

4th and March 31st, 2022, theAmerican Petroleum Institute created and ran an ad campaign

through its astroturf group, Energy Citizens, which consisted of 233 individual ads that were seen

roughly19.6 million times, equivalent to around 10% of all US users of Facebook (Q1 2022). All of

these ads promoted 'American-made energy' or 'energy independence'.

These narratives are being used to push for a long-term role for oil and fossil gas in the energy mix.

The companies and industry associations identified in the research appear to have targeted the

following policy issues:

o Introducing measures that encourage new and/or increased oil and gas production.

o Rolling back previous policy decisions that limit the production of oil and gas or introduce

considerations for climate change in approval processes for oil and gas production.

o Opposing current state-level policies that would reduce the need for oil and gas and

alleviate pressures stemming from demand for oil and gas.

Recent wins for the US oil and gas industry resulting from this lobbying include the rollback of the

FERC's proposal to consider climate change when permitting new gas projects on March 24th

2022, and the approval of two new LNG export terminals on March 16th 2022.]]

amazon post PR bs

april 2022

https:/**/theintercept.com/2022/04**/27/deconstructed-steven-donziger-chevron-ecuador/

pod

this week, after nearly 1,000 days of arbitrary detention, the environmental and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger was released from house arrest.On this week’s podcast, Donziger talks to Intercept investigative reporter Sharon Lerner and Ryan Grim about his decadelong legal battle with Chevron over land contamination in Ecuador.

[Deconstructed theme music.]

Sharon Lerner:This week on Deconstructed, I’m Sharon Lerner, investigative reporter for The Intercept, sitting in for Ryan Grim.

Our guest this week is Steven Donziger, the environmental lawyer who sued Chevron and won. Donziger helped win a multi-billion dollar judgment against the company for the contamination of land in Ecuador. Specifically, the Lago Agrio region where he’s been fighting on behalf of Indigenous people and farmers for more than 25 years.

As Donziger was arguing the case against Chevron in Ecuador back in 2009, the company said its long-term strategy was to demonize him. And, since then, Chevron has waged an all-out assault on Donziger in what’s become one of the most bitter and drawn-out cases in the history of environmental law.

Chevron has hired private investigators to track Donziger, created a publication just to smear him, and put together a legal team of hundreds of lawyers from 60 firms, who have successfully pursued an extraordinary campaign against him.

As a result, Donziger has been disbarred; his bank accounts have been frozen; he has had alien placed on his apartment; he faces exorbitant fines; and he was prohibited from earning money. A court seized his passport and put him on house arrest. Chevron, which has a market capitalization of $316 billion, has the funds to continue targeting Donziger for as long as it chooses.

In an emailed statement, Chevron wrote that: “any jurisdiction that observes the rule of law should find the fraudulent Ecuadorian judgment to be illegitimate and unenforceable.” The statement also said that: “Chevron will continue to work to hold the perpetrators of this fraud accountable for their actions, including Steven Donziger, who has committed a litany of corrupt and illegal acts related to his Ecuadorian judicial fraud against Chevron.”

Donziger was charged with contempt of court for refusing to hand over his computer, cellphone, and other electronic devices in August of 2019. He had already endured 19 days of depositions and given Chevron large portions of his case file. To him, the request for his devices was beyond the pale, and he appealed it on the grounds that it would require him to violate his commitments to his clients. Still, Donziger said he’d turn over the devices if he lost the appeal. Instead, he ended up confined by the court to his Upper West Side apartment.

Even though the underlying case was civil, the federal court judge who has presided over the litigation between Chevron and Donziger since 2011, Lewis Kaplan, drafted criminal contempt charges against him.

Kaplan ruled in 2014 that the Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron was invalid because it was obtained through “egregious fraud” and that Donziger was guilty ofracketeering, extortion, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering.

The decision hinged on the testimony of an Ecuadorian judge named Alberto Guerra, who claimed that Donziger had bribed him during the original trial and that the decision against Chevron had been ghostwritten. In 2015, when Guerra testified in an international arbitration proceeding, he admitted that he had lied and changed his story multiple times.

In another legal peculiarity, in July, Kaplan appointed a private law firm to prosecute Donziger, after the Southern District of New York declined to do so — a move that is virtually unprecedented. And, as Donziger’s lawyer has pointed out, the firm Kaplan chose, Seward & Kissel, likely has ties to Chevron.

Making the case even more extraordinary, Kaplan bypassed the standard random assignment process and handpicked someone he knew well, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, to oversee the case being prosecuted by the firm he chose. It was Preska who sentenced Donziger to home detention and ordered the seizure of his passport, even though Donziger had appeared in court on hundreds of previous occasions.

When I visited Donziger in his apartment last year, he had no idea that he would end up spending more than 900 days there on house arrest.

On Monday, Donziger was finally released from house arrest. Ryan Grim and I talked to him shortly afterwards. Here is our conversation.

[Musical interlude.]

Steve Donziger:I’m feeling great.

SL:Yeah. Big day!

Ryan Grim:Yeah. What day did you get off? I mean, what time?

SD:It was around 9:30-10, maybe, in the morning?

RG:Did you get an alert that said — I mean, I saw you got an alert that was kind of penal coming after you at like five in the morning. But then did you get an alert saying that you’re now a free person?

SD:[Laughs.] No, they don’t do that.

SL: What’s the first thing you did?

SD:Well, I came outside, and there were some people there and I taped a little talk and took a picture. And then I went into the subway and came home and my wife was there. And some of my friends and we hugged, and we rejoiced in the moment.

I didn’t really fully understand what freedom was until it was taken away. I’ve lived in my home now for 993 days straight, other than 45 days in federal prison. So it’s been quite the experience. It lasted a long time for various reasons I think related to retaliation by Chevron against me for my successful human rights work in Ecuador. But the cost to me and my family, obviously, was very, very high. Although, I think at the end of the day, it really is backfiring against Chevron and that we now have a much bigger, broader platform to advocate from than we did before.

RG: Does it feel different to be in your home now that you know you can leave? Like, does the home itself feel different that you’re there voluntarily?

SD: It does feel different. Freedom is not only the ability to kind of move around, travel, go out to eat, do what you want to do when you want to do it within reason. It’s also a psychological state. I found that I had taken freedom for granted my whole life. I mean, even just the ability to sort of think: Eh, maybe later today I’ll go to dinner or maybe later today, I’ll go see a show or go visit a friend, you know? And what my house arrest did I mean prison is even worse obviously, but house arrest deprives you of the ability to plan. It cuts you off from your friends and your social life. You can’t even think about the future.

I mean, one bizarre feature of my experience was that when it began, I was pretrial and Covid hit and it was very unclear how long it would last and Judge Preska, who put the ankle bracelet on me and forced me into my house on the theory I was a risk of flight — which was preposterous, and I reject — it was very clear, she was never going to take that ankle bracelet off even if Covid lasted five years, and there were no trials being held.

So for a long, long, long period of time, most of the time I’ve been in detention, it felt like it was an indefinite detention. And it was. There was no endpoint. And it wasn’t until I was denied a jury and I had a contempt trial where Judge Preska, the very person who had locked me up for, by that point, two years and two months prior to trial, she was my sole fact finder. And of course, she convicted me after denying me a fair trial, in my opinion. And then she still — on top of the two years and two months — sentenced me to six months in prison [laughs] when, again, the maximum sentence for a misdemeanor is six months. And she gave me the full sentence, not counting the two years and two months she had already made me stay at home.

So this was a very, in my opinion, corporate-generated politicized effort by two federal judges,Judge Preska and her colleague Judge Kaplan who appointed her to the case and who charged me with these supposed crimes. I mean, his charges, by the way, were rejected by the federal prosecutor, but they prosecuted me anyway with his private corporate law firm that had Chevron as a client.

So there were all sorts of things happening. But it was very clear that this was a Chevron prosecution. All the main witnesses in my supposed trial were Chevron lawyers. The prosecutor was from a Chevron law firm and the judge, Judge Preska, is a major leader of the Federalist Society where Chevron is a major funder. So I was surrounded from almost every angle by Chevron during my supposed trial.

RG:And this is not remotely the same thing. But when I was in my late teens, I got put on supervised probation for basically underage drinking, it was an extremely draconian sentence that was laid out. My travel was restricted. I had to do weekly drug tests. I had to meet with the probation officer. And there was something about the entire like, when you talk about the psychology of it, there’s something about the state, like telling you that the public has decided that you are a person that needs to be controlled that is just kind of psychologically devastating, even if you know that it’s not true. And in my case, I knew it wasn’t true. And in your case, obviously wildly different, you are a human rights attorney getting basically by this judge, but there’s still something weighty about the public having dealt a sentence at you.

Is that related to the restriction of freedom or not?

SD: Well, I think you make a really good point with your question. There’s a certain designed humiliation that takes place —

RG: Mhmm.

SD:— when the state sentences anyone to any kind of punishment, or even subjects them to arrest without a conviction. People assume you’re guilty of something if you’re even arrested or detained pretrial, as I was. And really, I would argue that the whole point of why Chevron had this done to me was to try to criminalize my successful human rights advocacy.

This is not uncommon. A lot of big companies go after environmental lawyers and activists who do their jobs effectively to try to make it look like what they’re doing is criminal when what they’re actually doing is, at least in my case, complying with the law and trying to save the planet.

SL: I guess I would say, I think your case is unusual. It’s super unusual, I think. Have we seen any other human rights or environmental attorneys imprisoned in this way? I haven’t, for sure.

SD:Oh, no, I mean, my case is an absolute extreme outlier, there’s no doubt. You’re totally right. But there are a lot of other cases that are less severe where environmental activists have been prosecuted. I mean, the protests at Standing Rock and Line 3 are a great example.

I mean, these people are generally charged with trespassing, but many of them get locked up for months and months; indigenous peoples are charged with trespassing on their own historical ancestral lands to try to block the pipeline.

SL:Yeah.

SD: So there’s all these legal so-called crimes that can be marshaled by, in that case, public prosecutors, in my case by a private law firm, that can create a supposed legal basis to lock people up.

I’d make this point though, which is that my case is an outlier. But I think the industry, the fossil fuel industry and the Chevron’s of the world, want it to become the new normal. And that’s why I think people really need to focus on this and pay attention. It’s an outlier now, but what happens when it happens again? Or for a third time or a fourth time? And suddenly you’re like: Oh, yeah, yeah, private prosecutions, OK, yeah, that happens now. And we can’t let an outlier — an extreme, I would call it — politically motivated prosecution of a human rights lawyer in the United States of America become the new normal, because this case, in my opinion, is a direct violation of the rule of law.

I mean, who’s ever heard of a private corporate law firm prosecuting a lawyer who won a civil case against a big oil company in that private corporate law firm, has the big oil company as a private client, while it’s prosecuting in the name of the U.S. government the main critic and the biggest adversary of the oil company? I mean, that’s not what happens in any rule of law country, much less the United States of America.

So, look, there’s no doubt Chevron broke new ground in terms of the tools and weapons it has and the larger industry has at their disposal, to capture the public machinery of justice of our criminal justice system and wield it in a way that tries to silence legitimate advocacy. That’s new. But that’s why it’s so scary. And I think that’s why, by the way, I’ve gotten so much support over the last two, three years while I’ve been detained. I mean, it’s just extraordinary the amount of support we’ve gotten, because people are really terrified by this. And they understand that this case goes way, way beyond me personally. It really is a direct assault on the ability to advocate by all environmental justice advocates, human rights lawyers who are on the frontlines trying to defend our Earth.

So more and more people get it, and we can’t let this happen again.

RG:And so Sharon, you’ve done for The Intercept some of the best reporting on this case. For people who are just tuning into it, can you catch people up on the background here?

SL:Yeah, thank you. So this case goes back to 1993, which I guess is what I would call the beginning, which is when a class action suit was filed in New York against Texaco over contamination of land in Ecuador that was the home to farmers and indigenous people, 30,000 people.

So I’m thinking that’s about 30 years ago that we’re talking about. So this case was moving forward in New York and was moved to Ecuador at the request of Chevron, actually. And in 2011, the Ecuadorian court ruled against Chevron ordering it to pay $18 billion, an award that was later reduced to $9.5 billion.

And this was a massive, huge and historic win — a real David and Goliath kind of situation. But, that same year, Chevron filed a RICO suit — a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations suit — against Steven in New York. And the company had made it clear a couple of years before in a document that we link in one of my stories, that its long-term strategy was to demonize him. And you can really see that play out both in the RICO suit and again, the RICO suit was, I believe that was 2011. So that’s already 11 years ago, basically that suit — in 2014 the case was decided in federal court by this federal court judge named Louis Kaplan, who ruled that the Ecuadorian judgment was invalid because it was obtained through fraud basically, and that judgment, and I know that’s super complicated, so stay with me, but that hinged on the testimony of an Ecuadorian judge named Alberto Guerra, who claimed that Donziger had bribed him in the original trial.

So it turned out that Guerra was actually paid by Chevron hundreds of thousands of dollars, and later admitted to having lied when Steven tried to get that testimony considered and the court to reconsider that testimony and declined.

And basically, what happened since then, was a sort of snowballing of decisions made by first Louis Kaplan, right, that found against Steven. So there’s the RICO suit, and then following the RICO suit that found that he, based on the testimony of this judge, had bribed the judge, even though we knew that that witness was paid by Chevron, and later admitted to lying; everything sort of hinged on that one decision, including the disbarment of Steven, right? And we should say that the charges that got him into this situation where he was on house arrest, and then spent some time in prison on a contempt of court charge, which is a civil charge, right? He was asked to hand over his cell phone and computer, something few attorneys have been asked to do. He said no, because he felt it would not be fair to his clients, and while this is a kind of strange charge, it is a civil charge, and I believe a misdemeanor — something that does not usually land anyone, no one gets arrested for this — in this case, of course, he was not only arrested, but served as he just said — how many days were you in on house arrest?

SD:Yeah —993 days.

SL: Oh my god. So it’s really an extreme and unusual situation. And obviously an epic ordeal for Steven, as he’s telling us, but the reason, I think, beyond our concern for fellow human beings and for activist-attorneys who are working on behalf of fellow human beings, the reason we all need to worry about this, is because of the implications for activism and for trying to hold big oil companies accountable. And obviously, this has been going on for decades, as we said and when we were first getting the decisions in this case, between just those 9-10 years, I just feel like so much has changed in terms of the climate movement, right?

We’re now realizing that in order to survive, we need to hold accountable these companies and Steven’s case was like really one of the first where they were being held accountable for their oil extraction and the very environmental consequences of it. And they made it super clear that they were gonna fight back. And I feel like he was made an example of. And I’d love to talk more, and hear him talk more, about what the example means. In some ways, I think, as he has pointed out, there is some backlash that basically this can backfire on them.

But Steven, I worry, this has been, as you said, incredibly hard for you. And I’m wondering where this leaves you, financially and your career? Do you have a hope of reversing this disbarment? I’m curious.

SD: OK. So I think what Sharon said is really important. And I want to compliment Sharon on her excellent journalism, generally, and her work on this particular case. My case, in particular, she was really the first reporter to report extensively on my detention. And I appreciate The Intercept. I think you guys do great work.

Look, I feel really good right now. Chevron tried to silence me. I’m now through what they put on me. And I feel stronger and more supported than ever. I mean, we have so much support around the world that we never had before, largely because Chevron, I think, overreached. And the world stepped up to try to protect me and protect the Ecuadorians.

I mean, just as an example, there’s 68 Nobel Peace laureates who have demanded my release. There’s 120 human rights and environmental organizations who have written to President Biden demanding he pardon me. There’s dozens of bar associations around the world who demanded my release. So we’re coming out of this, in some ways, a lot stronger.

Yes, I’ve lost my law license. I hope to get it back. I’m starting a Substack, by the way, to become my own kind of journalist. I used to be a journalist. I’m going to be doing a lot of writing about the Ecuador case, and about the prison experience, and about other human rights issues around the world that I’m going to be working on. So I’m really excited about the future.

And I don’t plan anymore to practice law in a traditional sense. I plan to use my legal skills not to have clients, but to just be able to analyze the law and advocate more broadly for victims of human rights abuses. That’s one of the ways I’m planning on maintaining myself and my family.

SL:Are you still on the hook for legal expenses of Chevron, in this case?

SD: Unclear. Judge Kaplan, as part of these attacks on me, ordered me to literally pay millions of dollars to Chevron to reimburse it for legal expenses it used to persecute me, basically. So, look, there’s some legal issues that are still out there. This is not over just because I’m out of this detention situation. But the case is a civil case, not a criminal case. And we’ll see how it plays out.

SL: I wonder, too, I mean, one of the big tragedies of all of this is that while we have rallied to your defense, and I think rightly so, and have been highlighting the fact that this is a terrible example for other climate activists, the people of the Amazon and Ecuador have not received a penny, right, from this company for the destruction of their land? And I’m wondering what you think the prospects are for any justice to be done for any court, anywhere, forcing the company to pay the judgment?

SD:Well, I think that the prospects for forcing Chevron to pay the judgment are significant. I think that’s one reason why they keep attacking me because they’re so scared that I will somehow exercise what they believe are my powers of sorcery to somehow make them pay billions of dollars. I mean, I think they want to destroy me, because I raised most of the money to finance the case up to this point.

But, look, there’s other lawyers working on it now. I’m not going to be leading anything. I’m no longer a lawyer. We’ll see if the Ecuadorian communities and the rest of their legal team want to or are able to bring an enforcement action. I really don’t know how that’s going to play out. I do know that Chevron has a judgment against it in the courts of Ecuador that’s valid and has been affirmed by multiple appellate courts, both in Ecuador and Canada. So they have a real risk there. They’re fighting every step of the way to try to prevent payment of the money to the people that courts have determined they poisoned in the Amazon. How that plays out remains to be seen.

RG: And we’ve reached out to Chevron multiple times. And Sharon, you’ve gotten a handful of either statements or statements that they’ve offered elsewhere. They even created a propaganda outlet, like an entire newspaper, they call The Amazon Post that is dedicated to — and they don’t really hide that it’s their propaganda outlet. I have it here, they say at the very top of it, “Chevron’s views and opinions on the Ecuador lawsuit.” But it’s called The Amazon Post. And beyond that disclaimer at the top, it looks like a normal news outlet.

SL: I was obsessed with that.

RG:Right. [Laughs.]

SL:I have to say. That’s what drew me to your story, Steven. I used to go and look at that page. And after reading :{Patrick Radden Keefe’s The New Yorker story:(style="font-weight:400"):}:, years before, and it just blew me away — I kept thinking the company has hired people to work on this. And it’s like the massive resources they were enabled to focus on a single individual, you, is really mind blowing.

SD:Yeah, it is. I can’t believe it. [Laughs] And didn’t anticipate it.

I mean, they’ve set up two websites dedicated to what I would argue is the destruction of my reputation. They have also, on the legal front, used 60 different law firms, 2,000 lawyers, they have six PR firms, designed to control information around the case and what I and other advocates do.

But that was sort of my point earlier. I think they’ve sort of lost control of the messaging around the case, because the truth has caught up with their lives. That’s what I would argue. The evidence is so strong.

And I also think, Sharon, that locking me up for almost three years and people who interview me and who know me, know, that’s not who I am. I don’t commit crimes. I’m a lawyer, OK? So I think the overreach caused people to be, in my opinion, much, much more skeptical of Chevron’s claims than otherwise would have been. And I think the longer my detention lasts, I think the more people are like: Wait a second, if they’re in a private prosecution locking a lawyer up who won a big pollution judgment against them, then maybe they really did do something wrong. Maybe the lawyer’s right, maybe the courts in Ecuador are right in how they decided the case. So I think it shifted the perception greatly when they locked me up — in our favor.

SL: Well, how confident are you that they’re not going to continue to use their vast resources to smear you and attack you? Because, I mean, even when they’re not with public opinion, they’re incredibly powerful, right? Just because of the amount of money they have. So do you think that they’re going to stop going after you? And, if so, why?

SD: I think they’re gonna keep on the same path they’ve been on. I mean, I fully expect it. But I just don’t think it’s going to be that effective. I just don’t. I think people know too much now. And I think there’s enough people, there’s a critical mass of people out there, who have access to the information, outside of the corporate kind of big media companies, like the New York Times has, for years, ignored this critically important story as an example, you can hardly see anything on networks.

So baked into my life is that there’s a big oil company willing to spend lots of money to try and mess up my life.

SL:[Laughs.]

SD:[Laughs.] That’s just how I have to live. And my guess is I’ll have to live that way for the rest of my life. But you know what? It’s like, good! OK? It means we were effective. And I want to emphasize that this stuff’s happening, I mean they’re attacking us, because we were successful and effective, not because of any other reasons.

So if you’re going to get into this field of work, and really go toe-to-toe with a big, powerful company that’s a major polluter in an effort to save our planet, you’re going probably, if you’re effective, to get hit with some version of what I’m getting hit with. I think I’m getting hit with a really extreme version, because of the size of the judgment and just the number of years it’s lasted.

SL:Well. You have said that you really want Biden to pardon you.

SD:Yep.

SL:And obviously that’s meaningful to you in some way. And I’m wondering what that would achieve for you, and, conversely, if he doesn’t do that, what are you stuck with? I think it’ll be helpful to understand what you’ve been weighed down with.

SD:Yeah, thank you.

I mean, so look, the reason we’re asking President Biden to pardon me is because the system failed, the legal system failed, in this case. And the way it failed is I’m the first person in American history to be prosecuted by a private corporation, a private corporate law firm, that had Chevron, in this case, as one of its clients. And I was the lawyer who beat Chevron in court over this significant, I would say epic, pollution case. And they were trying to retaliate against me and deprive me of my liberty. I’m the only lawyer ever in the U.S. to be held pretrial on a misdemeanor and I was held for over two years and two months, even though the longest sentence ever given a lawyer for my offense level prior to my case was 90 days of home confinement.

So this is clearly retaliation by a corporation. And it’s never been corrected by an appellate court. There’s nowhere to go.

So for the rule of law to be restored in our country, vis-a-vis what happened to me in this case, the only option is for President Biden to issue a pardon. That won’t save me from all the other attacks Chevron’s able to do, by the way. That would just be a pardon for the criminal conviction on this contempt case where I was denied a jury, and where I was prosecuted by this private law firm — and also, by the way, denied the right to put on a real defense by an evidentiary ruling of the judge. So I think it’s important that the United States not become a country that locks up its human rights lawyers, like some other countries around the world do. And I think President Biden is the only person at this point who can really address this problem in any kind of fundamental way.

By the way, we’ve asked Attorney General Garland to deal with it by taking back the prosecution from the Chevron law firm and prosecuting me directly under the auspices of the Department of Justice. Look, for a year, I was probably the only lawyer in U.S. history ever begging the DOJ to prosecute him or her.

SL: [Laughs.] Yeah.

SD: Because it was so preposterous. I couldn’t deal with this private law firm. They wouldn’t even negotiate; they wouldn’t talk with any kind of normal prosecutorial sanity or discretion. I mean, they were just out to harm me as much as they possibly could, backed by a judge who also was out to harm me. So the whole system went awry.

So I’m disappointed, by the way, in Attorney General Garland for not taking back the prosecution. I’m disappointed in his performance on other issues, like the January 6 so-called insurrection. But the only place left to go now in my case is President Biden for a pardon.

And by the way, you can go to my website :{freedonziger.com:(style="font-weight:400"):}:, you can read the letter that 10 lawyers signed, prominent lawyers, to President Biden seeking the pardon for me.

SL: But to be clear, for you, this is about the precedent and clearing your name? Or would it materially change anything for you? That’s what I’m curious about.

SD: Well, I think it is about clearing my name. I think it’s about erasing a conviction that’s a violation of international law and violation of the Constitution. I think it would be very powerful on a symbolic level. Look, it’s not going to give me my two years, and eight months, and two weeks — so it’s not going to give me back my 32 months and two weeks, OK? That’s gone forever. But it will restore, I think, some semblance of fairness to the process. And I think it’ll be symbolically extremely important for President Biden to step in to address this and correct this problem.

[Musical interlude.]

RG:And I also wanted to give you a chance to respond to some of Chevron’s claims. They’ve got these multiple PR firms, they have got different propaganda outlets online. And if you peruse those, you’ll see the claims that they’re making.

Sharon mentioned the bribery allegation, which turns out that Chevron actually paid an extraordinary amount of money to this person, and the person has admitted on the stand that they had lied.

So setting that key witness aside, they also make a number of minor claims. They claim that actually all of the damage to the rainforests was done by Petroecuador, not by Texaco or Chevron. They say that your team manipulated environmental reports and submitted them into the Ecuadorian courts. They say that you blackmailed a judge to get him removed from the case and generally improperly pressured the courts and the people around the court. So what’s the response to those various kinds of Chevron allegations?

SD: Yeah, so, look: We did not do anything wrong. Everything we did was in adherence to the law, and the rules and customs of the civil justice system in Ecuador. There was no bribe. First of all, I would never bribe a judge. None of the people on our team bribed the judge. There’s no evidence there was a bribe other than a paid Chevron witness who later admitted he lied. So I want to be very clear about that. These allegations were taken before the real courts in this case, those in Ecuador, and three appellate courts including the Supreme Court of the country and the country’s constitutional court completely rejected these allegations, because there’s no evidence other than from the mouth of this paid Chevron witness — his name is Alberto Guerra — who by the way, was coached for 53 straight days by Chevron’s lawyers in the United States before he took the stand in Judge Kaplan’s court, and came up with this spectacular allegation against me. He claimed I was in a meeting where he saw me approve the bribe of a trial judge — never happened. There was no evidence it happened other than from his mouth. And I’ve rejected it completely, as have courts all over the place.

They allege a lot of things: We manipulated environmental reports. I don’t know what they’re talking about. We worked, as lawyers, with our paid experts to write environmental reports that we thought accurately reflected the evidence, the soil and water samples that undeniably, unassailable-y, showed massive levels of toxic contamination at former Chevron well sites all over the rainforest. So they call that manipulation? Well, this is how the law works. Lawyers work with their experts to help them write reports; they did the same thing with their experts.

Blackmailed the judge?I completely reject that. [Laughs.] Like, what are they talking about? I mean, it’s crazy. What they’re alleging is the kinds of things they did constantly. Like they say we bribed the judge? Actually, no. They say we manipulated environmental reports? False. We wrote accurate environmental reports. They were the ones manipulating the environmental evidence by taking, for example, soil and water samples hundreds of meters away from the waste pits, and they would turn up no contaminants and say: Oh! There’s no contaminants at the site. That was manipulation.

And we did not blackmail a judge. They were constantly intimidating judges, or trying to, and threatening them with criminal charges, if they didn’t rule in their favor. They completely tried to delay and sabotage the trial by filing literally dozens and dozens of duplicative motions in an hour. I mean, there was crazy stuff happening, and Chevron was the party doing it, not us. So these allegations are completely false or highly misleading. And I’m happy to rest on the 220,000 pages of record evidence in the case, the 64,000 chemical sampling results, and the six appellate court decisions from 28 different appellate judges that affirmed the judgment.

RG:To me, one of the most mind-boggling charges to hear from a global oil company, was that it was unfair because you and your team had exerted political influence —

SD: Ha!

RG:— over the judicial process and over the system.

SD:Yeah

RG:It’s like a multinational oil company — Chevron is one of the top five oil companies in the world. Chevron might be top three.

SL:Yeah.

RG:It is one of the most powerful institutions on the planet. And it is a fact, and you could talk a little bit about this, you’ve been in this world a lot longer, and it is a fact that the legal system is also political, and that that is the case here in the United States, that’s the case in Ecuador, that is the case all over the world. We’d like to pretend that the judicial system is entirely divorced from politics, but it’s not. We know that giant law firms have PR strategies and have political strategies around cases.

So what kind of political approach did you take to the case in Ecuador, and do you think that any of it was over the line? Or was it just: This is how you do a class action suit. Because class action suits are, in a lot of ways, inherently political.

SD:Well the debate over whether the law exists kind of in a separate silo free from politics or subject to politics is something I heard about a lot as a law student, and since. But, I mean, let’s get real. Every judicial system reflects the politics of the country within which it exists. And, for example, in the United States, as corporations I think consolidated their power tremendously over the last 10-20 years, with the Koch brothers funding network, and all these sort of trends that are happening with the Federalist Society now naming judges. The Federalist Society is this right-wing legal group that my trial judge is a member of and a leader of, funded by Chevron and a lot of the big corporations in America. I mean, it’s very clear, there’s been a very concerted effort by the corporate right to control the federal judiciary in this country, as well as state judiciaries.

And I think that what happened to me with this private corporate prosecution would not have happened had this 20-to-30-year effort not been implemented with some degree of success by these elements in our society. It is preposterous for Chevron to accuse us of somehow politicizing the case. All we wanted to do was do a legal case based on evidence. They would, for example, take out full-page advertisements in the leading Ecuadorian newspapers during the trial attacking me, or attacking our experts. The websites that Sharon talked about that are used to defame me today that you can get, The Amazon Post, I think it’s called, I urge people to go look at it. It’s crazy. They did that kind of stuff in Ecuador, they do it here, they do it constantly, not just in this case, but in trying to control what people think about climate change and about what they do as a company in terms of clean energy. It’s all very deceptive. And it’s all designed to impact how the law operates and how judges rule based on political pressure.

I mean, they’re trying to generate pressure to win cases through manipulation or abuse, that I don’t think they could ever win fairly on the merits of the actual claim. So they do that constantly. I saw it with my own eyes, in this case in Ecuador and since. And I observe this industry pretty closely because of the work I do. And you see this all the time.

So the idea that a human rights lawyer, for example, would talk to Sharon Lerner or talk to the press, or invite a documentary filmmaker to record the litigation — for them to try to argue that that was somehow inappropriate when they do those exact same things at a much, much higher and more effective level, I think is obviously hypocritical, insincere, and inaccurate.

SL: And let me just jump in about where Chevron ranks. So they’re second to Saudi Aramco in terms of the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted in the modern era.

SD: Wow. Yeah.

SL:So — yes.

SD:I’ll say this: People are obviously watching the war in Ukraine. Few people know that Chevron is literally the only large American company still doing business in Russia during this war. They’re partnering with Putin’s government on a huge gas pipeline that generates literally hundreds of millions of dollars a day in revenue for Russia, for the government, and for Putin to fund his army that is committing all sorts of atrocities in Ukraine. So Chevron is a company that turned its back on the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador whom it poisoned and to whom it owes money. They don’t pay; they leave these vulnerable communities holding the cleanup bill for harm that Chevron caused. And then they go over to Russia and they’re in business with Putin.

I mean, there’s no end it seems, no floor, to what I would argue is the moral bankruptcy of this particular company. But, of course, it’s an industry wide problem. I mean, it’s all about the money. And it’s very clear that our governmental institutions have been so seriously weakened by corporate money, that they’re incapable of actually standing up to this kind of abuse. I mean, that’s what I experienced again, in my private criminal prosecution.

SL: I definitely see how there’s a way in which this has really backfired for Chevron. And we’ve seen Chris Smalls and all these amazing activists kind of stream through your apartment while you’ve been stuck there. People are sort of going to pay tribute and it’s been this amazing thing to watch on your Instagram, right? All the people, the activists, who are recognizing what you’ve been through and pulling together. And I find that really inspiring and encouraging.

And on the other hand, the people of Ecuador who you were representing, again, have not received any of the money that they were supposed to get, the environmental mess is still there. And you have emerged on the other side of this, but you don’t have your law license and you can’t go defend them. And I hesitate to couch this all in terms of winners and losers. But [laughs] I worry about the upshot of all you’ve been through. I just think that there are a lot of lessons to be learned from this, and some of them are positive, and some of them are pretty scary.

SD: I share your concern. This is not all good for me. Look, it’s bad!

SL:Yeah!

SD: I mean, what I’m really trying to convey is I got strengthened through the process of their persecution of me to the point where we’re in a much higher place right now, where I think they actually face more risk now than they did three years ago. But it doesn’t mean that they’re going to pay the Ecuador judgment by any means. It’s unclear how all of this is going to play out.

I think the big loss is for our society. I mean, there was a private corporate criminal prosecution that deprived a human rights lawyer of his liberty for almost three years based on a civil discovery order in a civil case. It’s never happened before. And I think that’s what people really need to focus on.

I mean, I’m confident enough in the support I have, in my resilience to really feel like I will get through whatever they try to throw at me from this point forward. It doesn’t mean I’ll have my old life back, because I have to deal with all sorts of issues and sort of byproduct of what I had to endure the last few years, but, I’m OK. My family’s OK.

I think the real question is: Where are we in the United States of America in terms of corporate control of our judiciary and of our governmental institutions? Because we really should not be living in a society where an oil company can directly prosecute its main adversary and deprive him of his liberty without the U.S. government being involved. That’s wrong. And that’s why I think President Biden, Attorney General Garland, the Congress — where are our leaders? I mean, I know people are busy with lots of obviously critically important issues other than the Ecuador case, and other than Chevron and Steve Donziger, I get it. [Laughs.] But this is a new kind of animal that our criminal justice system has never seen before in terms of the amount of corporate control and allowing someone’s liberty to be taken away, essentially, by a corporate adversary.

So I am hopeful, Sharon, that at least on that issue, enough attention can be drawn to this so that it never happens again to anyone else. At least that’s my hope.

SL: I would also say: You’re right that this is a government story, it’s a judiciary story, it is a climate story. And I think you’re right that it’s also a media story. When I went to see you in January 2020, you had already been on house arrest for a couple of months, and no one had written about it.

SD: I had been on house arrest for five months.

SL:Right!

SD: I got arrested — or put on house arrest August 6, 2019. You came in January of the next year. And by the way, like, I couldn’t believe it lasted seven months. And if you had told me then it was going to last 32 months, I’d be like: There’s no way!

SL:[Laughs.] But it’s also —

SD:So, yes. This has been a story ignored by the mainstream media. Totally. I mean, they don’t know how to deal with it.

SL:And even after that. So after that story, quite a number of publications, I think we can call them lefty publications, have written about this. But I think you’re right, that there’s been a real silence. And I think I know why. You get calls from the attorneys, who scare the bejesus out of editors.

SD:I focus on my own social media; I focus on truly independent outlets like The Intercept, The Nation, and others. And just, we work with what we have. And we have been successful in getting our narrative out there and getting the facts as we see them out there. But I think it’s deeply disappointing that a human rights lawyer was locked up for five months, there were no stories at all, and since you really opened the floodgates — once you wrote, by the way, a lot of other independent outlets started to write. But we still haven’t been able to penetrate the large media companies.

RG:And let me take this opportunity to make a plug, not just for The Intercept but for the independent media sphere. Like if you, as a listener, watch any YouTube shows, you listen to independent podcasts, you read independent websites — become a member. Support that independent media because it’s valuable in a system where the other piece of it is so tightly connected to corporate America, that you can have just absolutely extraordinary stories that go uncovered because of the fear of the consequences of covering them. And so that’s a plug, not just for The Intercept, but for all independent media.

And also, Steven, what was it again, :{stevendonziger.substack.com:(style="font-weight:400"):}:? Is that your newsletter?

SD:Yeah. So I had my first post and launched it last week. I’m going to be writing every week about all sorts of issues related to the criminal justice system. Years ago, I edited a book called “The Real War on Crime.” I used to be a criminal defense lawyer. I just spent 45 days in the belly of the beast in federal prison, and several more months dealing with this home confinement craziness, where I get calls by this for-profit company at all hours of the day and night. So I’m going to be writing about a lot of human rights issues, criminal justice issues, and of course, Chevron and some of the oil industry and climate issues.

And, again, it’s stevendonziger.substack.com. I hope people subscribe, and get interested in some of this material. I’m really no different than The Intercept, just as a person, in the sense that I feel like it’s very hard to create platforms where truly independent reporting and commentary can actually take place. The Intercept is a relatively new institution in our world, but it’s so important. I get so much of my information from y’alls outlet, and I salute all of y’all for what you do — and others as well. The media landscape has changed.

I mean, look, had this happened 25 years ago and The New York Times decided not to cover me, like, I don’t think anyone would have known about this.

RG: Mhmm.

SD:Where would you have gone back then? And now the reality is the story is out. When they arrested me back in 2019, I think I had about 1,000 Twitter followers. And now I have 180,000. Like there’s people very engaged in this story all over the world. By the way, if people want to follow me it’s @sdonziger.

Sorry to keep plugging myself! But I hope you understand why I do that —

RG:I do.

SD: — because it’s the only way I can get support.

So we’re just in a completely different environment where you don’t as much need these big media outlets to get the truth out, like you did years ago. So I’m trying to take full advantage of that. And like even being on this podcast, having The Intercept write about this on a regular basis. You guys read another story about Sen. Gillibrand’s relationship to Chevron and Chevron lawyers. There’s so much interesting reporting going on over there. So I’m just appreciative and I don’t know what to say.

And by the way, I recognize that some of this case is a little complicated. But, to me, it’s real simple. I mean, the Indigenous peoples were poisoned by Chevron, they won a legal case, Chevron’s now trying to destroy the legal case by destroying their lawyer. And if you want to read more about it, you know, on our website, freedonziger.com, there’s a bunch of articles, including from The Intercept, where people can get a lot more background information than we have time to delve into now in this podcast.

RG:Thanks for taking some time out of your first day of freedom. And I hope you enjoy the rest of it. And thank you, Sharon, for joining me as well.v

wapo

Washington Post Live

The Path Forward: The Future of Energy with Chevron Chair & CEO Michael Wirth

Chevron Chair & CEO Michael Wirth discusses the future of energy in a rapidly changing world on Monday, August 16 (The Washington Post)

By Washington Post Live

August 16, 2021

With growing demand around the world, countries and companies are rethinking the energy sources that fuel our lives. As newer technologies emerge, Chevron chair and CEO Michael Wirth is not only leading the oil giant’s efforts to curb its current carbon output, but he is also spearheading their investments into alternative energy sources. Wirth sits down with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius to discuss the future of energy in a rapidly changing world.

Click here for transcript

Highlights

When asked what he expects for crude oil prices going forward, Chevron chair and CEO Michael Wirth said, “We’ve got a market that’s really not in a state of equilibrium. Demand is returning but unevenly and with a lot of uncertainty as the effects of the pandemic still are evident in many of the markets around the world. (Washington Post Live)

Chevron CEO: ‘We believe the future of energy is lower carbon’

Chevron recently announced plans that aim to cut its current carbon output. Chair and CEO Michael Wirth said he believes the “future of energy is lower carbon.” “These are all the things that you should expect us to do in al lower energy future where the system is diversifying so are we.” (Washington Post Live)

Chevron CEO says he’d like to see more engagement between Biden administration and energy industry

Chevron chair and CEO Michael Wirth says he would like to see increased engagement between the energy industry and the Biden administration. “We’d like to engage in discussions about how we can work together to invest, to create jobs, to responsibly develop energy resources, and keep our country strong economically, strong from an energy security standpoint, and meet the objectives of the administration.” (Washington Post Live)

Michael Wirth.

Michael K. (Mike) Wirth, 60, is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Chevron Corporation. He was elected to these positions by Chevron’s board of directors in September 2017 and assumed the roles on February 1, 2018.

Prior to his current role, Wirth served as vice chairman of the board in 2017 and executive vice president of Midstream & Development for Chevron Corporation from 2016 – 2018. In that role, he was responsible for supply and trading, shipping, pipeline and power operating units, as well as corporate strategy; business development; and policy, government and public affairs.....

but his reported annual salary of $1.5 million is likely to be increased along with the perks and compensation package that is expected to exceed $15 million.

His exact net worth is unknown but …

Beyond his $1.5 million annual salary we also discovered he took advantage of some stock options that he sold for $3,298,550. This is separate from the earlier $16.6 million in stock he recently sold. That would put is net worth in the $30 to $50 million range, if not higher.

took over from

John S. Watson (born 1956) is an American businessman. He served as the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the Chevron Corporation from January 1, 2010 to January 31, 2018.^[1][2][3]

John S. Watson was born in California in 1956.^[2] In 1978, he graduated with a B.A. in Agricultural Economics from the University of California, Davis, and in 1980 he received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.^[2][3]

In 1980, he joined the Chevron Corporation. He served as its chief financial officer from 2001 to 2005.^[1][2] From 2009 to 2010, he was Vice-chairman of the board.^[1][2] Since 2010, he has served as chairman and CEO.^[1][2]

He also serves as chairman of the board of the American Petroleum Institute, and on the board of directors of Caltex, Dynegy (2001–2004), the National Petroleum Council, the Business Council, the Business Roundtable, JPMorgan International Council, the American Society of Corporate Executives, and the Animal Rescue Foundation.^[1][2][3]