CONOCO-Phillips
turns out to be a bigger denier than i thought: see 7/15 UCS study:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/exxon-knew-climate-change-1981-email-says-it-funded-deniers-27-more-years
---
---
LEVER
NIXON DONORS
What they uncovered was damning. Witten and his team traced
the funds paid to the Watergate burglars back to illegal campaign con-
tributions, but they wanted to go further, examining the motivations
behind these secret donations. Why were Nixon’s backers so eager to
avoid disclosure? What influence were they buying?
The names of contributors and companies came from multiple
sources: members of CREEP, Nixon’s personal lawyer, investigative
journalists like Woodward and Bernstein, and the Rose Mary’s Baby
list. Familiar corporations emerged, including Gulf Oil, Ashland Oil,60
Northrop, 61 Phillips Petroleum,62 Goodyear, 63 Occidental.64
---
---
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/exxon-chevron-shell-conocophillips-record-profits-earnings-oil-companies-most-profitable-year/
see sen heating 6 23 kickass
global oil companies have rebounded since the pandemic to post their highest ever profits since people started using petroleum.
Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and Shell all reported record profits in 2022 — a year in which Russia's war on Ukraine collided with the post-pandemic economic recovery to drive oil prices to their highest levels in history.
Together, the four companies saw $1 trillion in sales last year, a sum greater than the total economic output of Colombia, South Africa or Switzerland. TotalEnergies and BP are set to report their 2022 financial results next week.
The record profits come after a year of skyrocketing gas prices. After slumping hard in 2020, global consumption of oil and gasoline bounced back far slower than production, putting pressure on gas prices. Russia's invasion of Ukraine a year ago further shrank the world's oil supplies, bringing the average price of gas in the U.S. above $5 a gallon in the spring and summer. [graph]
shell on Thursday reported a nearly $40 billion profit for last year. That's more than double the prior year's results and the most money Shell has ever made in its 115 years of existence. Chevron, the second-largest oil company in the U.S., posted record earnings of $36.5 billion last year, while refiner ConocoPhillips doubled its profits to $18.7 billion, the highest in the 10 years since it spun off its refining business.
Exxon, the largest U.S. oil producer, this week reported an epic $55 billion in profits for 2022. The oil giant's bottom line "clearly benefited from a favorable market," CEO Darren Woods told investors. He also touted Exxon's investments before and during the pandemic, which allowed it to increase production as demand was ramping up.
"We leaned in when others leaned out, bucking conventional wisdom," Woods said.
The windfall makes Exxon the third-most-profitable company of 2022, behind only Apple and Microsoft, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In addition to high prices for crude oil, elevated natural-gas prices and high margins in the refining business also pushed up oil company profit, said Peter McNally, industrial and energy analyst at Third Bridge.
"Windfall" profits
The White House and environmentalists have condemned oil companies' ballooning profits. The White House has criticized fossil-fuel companies for not increasing production to help bring down gas prices, and last year floated a tax on oil and gas profits.
A White House spokesperson called Exxon's record profit "outrageous" in a statement to the BBC. The spokesperson, Abdullah Hasan, also blasted Chevron's announcement that it would spend $75 billion on buying back stock from investors.
"Companies clearly have everything they need — record profits and thousands of approved permits — to increase production. The only thing getting in the way is their own decision to keep plowing windfall profits into the pockets of executives," Hasan tweeted.
"A windfall tax on oil and gas profits is needed more than ever, to free up money that's desperately needed to help those struggling with the cost of energy, and as economies around the world face recession," Jonathan Noronha-Gant, senior campaigner with Global Witness, told the Associated Press.
Some jurisdictions, including the European Union and the U.K., have imposed such taxes on surplus energy-company profits, putting the proceeds toward covering citizens' skyrocketing energy costs. In December, Exxon sued to stop the EU's tax.
"We looked at what happened in the EU and said it both is not legal and it's the opposite of what is needed," Woods said Tuesday, calling the tax "a penalty on the broad energy sector."
Dramatic turnaround
Oil companies have seen a remarkable turnaround from 2020, a year when travel ground to a halt, demand for fuel evaporated, dozens of oil and gas companies filed for bankruptcy protection, and thousands of industry workers were laid off. Exxon lost $22 billion that year — the first year in decades that it had lost money.
In addition to oil-extracting operations that were taken offline in 2020, refining capacity also fell, contributing to higher gas prices and refinery profit margins.
"The refining business, particularly in the U.S., soared to record levels," McNally, the Third Bridge analyst, said. "The price of crude oil went up but the prices of refined products like gasoline and diesel went up even more. The largest U.S. independent refiner, Marathon Petroleum, delivered record profits, but ExxonMobil and Chevron also compete in refining."
---
---
y mail 6 23
New Blog: The American Petroleum Institute Loves Pennsylvania, As Its Lobbying Shows
As one of the top fossil fuel producing states, Pennsylvania is a key focus for the oil and gas industry. In fact, with $1.8 million spent in 2022 alone, the American Petroleum Institute reported spending more money on lobbying in Pennsylvania than in any other state last year. Read more from Aly Shaw at the LittleSis Eyes on the Ties blog.
New Blog: Fossil Fuel Directors’ Ties to University Boards Run Deep
While Harvard professor Jody Freeman’s board seat at ConocoPhillips-- and her lobbying on the company’s behalf -- has been in the headlines, directors from other Big Oil companies and dirty utilities are well-represented on university boards and in other higher ed roles. We mapped out some key ties between the boards of Chevron, Marathon Petroleum, Valero, Southern Company and others to different universities and colleges. Some of the findings may be shocking -- for example, that the chair of the board of trustees of the very liberal Wesleyan University is a Chevron director or that three Chevron directors have prominent roles at USC. These relationships don’t only greenwash oil companies -- they throw into doubt the climate gestures made by universities who give fossil fuel directors governing roles at their institutions. Read our latest blog post here.
==
---
https://www.desmog.com/**2022/10/**18/new-jersey-sues-shell-exxon-api-oil-public-deception-climate/
the state of New Jersey filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against five oil companies and the oil industry’s most powerful lobbying group for covering up and misleading the public about climate change, the latest round of state and municipal-led climate litigation seeking accountability from the oil industry.
Thelawsuit, filed in the New Jersey Superior Court, states that the companies knew about climate change for decades and actively sought to conceal that information from the public. Instead, they funded PR campaigns aimed at confusing and misleading the public.
The oil companies “concealed and misrepresented the dangers of fossil fuels; disseminated false and misleading information about the existence, causes, and effects of climate change; and aggressively promoted the ever-increasing use of their products at ever-greater volumes,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit names ExxonMobil, Shell Oil Company, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute, the main lobbying group in which the five oil companies were members.
The case comes just ahead of the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, which devastated New Jersey and other parts of the eastern seaboard, and the storm “previews the grave climate-related consequences New Jersey faces as a direct result of Defendants’ tortious deception,” the lawsuit argues.
As it happens, nearly 25 years ago, Shell predicted with remarkable accuracy the events that would broadly unfold.In a 1998 internal document that laid out future climate scenarios, Shell described a hypothetical catastrophic storm that would ravage the U.S. East Coast in 2010 — one that sounds unmistakably like Hurricane Sandy — which sets off a society-wide backlash that would engulf the oil industry. The result would be a legal and policy reckoning. From Shell’s 1998 forecast:
“Following the storms, a coalition of environmental NGOs brings aclass-action suit against the US government and fossil-fuel companies on the grounds of neglecting what scientists (including their own) have been saying for years: that something must be done. Asocial reaction to the use of fossil fuels grows, and individuals become ‘vigilante environmentalists’ in the same way, a generation earlier, they had become fiercely anti-tobacco. Direct-action campaigns against companies escalate. Young consumers, especially, demand action.”
Today, a long list of major climate accountability cases are proceeding in state courts, each with extensive documented evidence demonstrating that the oil industry, including Shell, covered up internal climate science and instead chose to fund climate denial and greenwashing campaigns.
“Based on their own research, these companies understood decades ago that their products were causing climate change and would have devastating environmental impacts down the road,”New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkinsaid in a statement. “They went to great lengths to hide the truth and mislead the people of New Jersey, and the world. In short, these companies put their profits ahead of our safety.”
Shell knew about the risks and reality of climate change at least as far back as the 1980s. A 1988 internal Shell document called “The Greenhouse Effect,” detailed Shell’s knowledge that climate change was real, that fossil fuels were a principal cause, and that 1.5 to 3.5 degrees Celsius warming was possible. The document also warned that society could turn against fossil fuels if they learned about how serious the threat was.
The New Jersey legal campaign, like the others, seeks compensation from the oil industry for the large and growing destructive cost of the worsening climate crisis.
“The lawsuit by New Jersey adds to growing momentum to hold Big Oil accountable for its decades of deception and harm,” Kathy Mulvey, the accountability campaign director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. “As the tobacco control movement has demonstrated, litigation is a powerful tool that can and should be used to hold bad actors accountable and protect people and the planet over profit" [twt]
in response to questions from DeSmog, Anna Arata, a spokesperson for Shell, stated: “The Shell Group’s position on climate change has been a matter of public record for decades. We agree that action is needed now on climate change, we fully support the need for society to transition to a lower-carbon future and we’re committed to playing our part by addressing our own emissions and helping customers to reduce theirs.”
Arata went on: “We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change, but that smart policy from government, supported by action from all business sectors, including ours, and from civil society, is the appropriate way to reach solutions and drive progress.”
But Shell’s misdirection continues through to the present. The company, like its peers, heavily advertises its clean transition plans and investments in renewable energy, but analysts say Shell is expected to spend four times as much on oil and gas development compared to renewables. Indeed, despite the glossy ads and rhetoric, Shell’s plans to grow oil and gas production in the years ahead mean that it is on track to produce more greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 than it does today.
And as DeSmog reported last month, Shell is acutely aware of how its communications on the energy transition can open it up to further litigation, warning employees in internal emails and presentations not to confuse the oil major’s net-zero talk with the company’s actual business plan.
“It’s long overdue that the facts be aired in a New Jersey court, and the perpetrators of the disinformation campaign pay for the harms they’ve caused,” New Jersey Attorney General Platkin said.
==
---
exxon ~ ESG, chevron cono ~ SEC/ESG:
all big CTT ~ Comments to SEC on ESG rule: comments from CHEVRONacc chem, AEI, AFP, API, cato, cei heartland etc CTT, CoC, co2 coalition, conoco phillips, enbridge, inst for free speech,
:{:{}:
}:
Gensler: On behalf of the Institute for Free Speech,1 I respectfully submit the following comments climate change disclosures that Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee discussed in her March 15, 2021, public statement.2 .
p. 153 1 occurrence
Respectfully submitted, /s/ Ryan Morrison Ryan Morrison, Attorney INSTITUTE FOR FREE SPEECH 14 NAM II, 800 F.3d at 526 (quoting Edenfield v. heritage, nam, NMA, noia, lifepowered TPPF, WEA western energy? US oil and gas
june 2022
https://www.vox.com/23058987/sec-climate-finance-disclosure
as drought spreads and sea levels rise, the economic impacts of climate change will run in the trillions of dollars. The insurance firm Swiss Re projects climate disasters would cost the world as much as $23 trillion by 2050, bigger than the impact from the pandemic and the Great Recession of 2009 combined.
It’s reasonable business planning to account for all this foreseeable risk — just like planning for cyberattacks or business disruptions from a pandemic. Last year, for instance, the US had to spend $145 billion dealing with floods, fires, and other climate-related disasters.
Yet somehow, climate change has fallen through the cracks of US financial regulation. Publicly traded companies are required to disclose information about “material” risks that affect their company regardless of their cause, from sanctions to supply chain chaos. But there are no uniform standards for disclosing how much fossil fuel pollution they generate or the impact that climate change could have on their future growth. Instead, companies have been left free to inflate their environmental progress, all with little scrutiny from the public.
This kind of information is, in theory, essential to a functioning free market, so investors can make decisions based on complete information. But fossil fuel interests, conservative ideologues, and corporate trade groups are striving to keep shareholders in the dark on climate risks.
The Biden administration is trying to make companies more publicly accountable for the risk of the climate crisis. A linchpin of Biden’s plan is a draft rule theSecurities and Exchange Commission (SEC)proposed in March. Over 500 pages, the SEC rule proposes that publicly traded companies disclose how climate change affects their business outlook and identify a board member or board committee to focus on climate-related risks.
Once the rule is finalized, companies will have to disclose how their operations are affected by extreme weather events and the impact of climate change on the short- and medium-term business outlook. They’ll also have to report the emissions both from their company’s operations and from how their products are used. This is particularly bad news for fossil fuel companies with business models predicated on selling pollution. Until this rule, they haven’t had to fully account for the environmental impact from things like selling gas that’s burned by consumers’ cars.
This is a rule, in other words, that helps the free market act like the free market, giving investors exactly the information they need to make the decisions,” Emory University business law expert George Georgiev said.
As the draft rule’s comment period came to a close, it’s clear any regulation on climate change faces serious headwinds. The loudest protests have come from right-wing groups and corporate-aligned nonprofits that have flooded the public comments with previews of the argument they’ll take to courts.
Plenty of businesses in the financial sector stand to benefit from this rule, like the investing giant BlackRock, which has pledged to align its assets with climate goals. But some could be hurt. The companies that benefit from greenwashing their climate commitments are doing everything they can to protect the chaotic status quo.
Financial transparency on climate change is hardly a radical idea
The SEC has required and standardized public company disclosures since 1933. In recent decades, the SEC has issued nonbinding guidance on how publicly traded companies should consider Covid-19 disruptions, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and even a feared “Y2K” meltdown at the turn of the 21st century, so the companies would meet their fiduciary duty.
But the SEC has been painfully slow on climate change. Right now, businesses disclose the risks and costs of their business on the climate on a voluntary, patchy basis with no clear standardization.
A 2020 Government Accountability Office surveyed 32 midsize and large publicly traded companies and found little consistency. Airlines, for example, used years anywhere between 1990 and 2017 as the baseline for calculating their climate footprint. Water companies have used completely different measurements for reporting water extraction. Some companies would just report carbon emissions, while others would report total greenhouse gas emissions (including sources like methane).
The proposed SEC rule cites other evidence of companies not paying attention to this risk, like an internal survey of climate-related keywords in companies’ 10-Ks between June 2019 and December 2020. They found only 31 percent mentioned climate change at all.
This information is not just to benefit climate change efforts; it is also useful to investors. It makes clearer, for instance, that a retail company’s warehouses might be threatened by increased flooding, that an airline company might have to ground more flights because of rising heat waves, or that a bank’s backing of major fossil fuel expansion has the strong chance of backfiring in a world that transitions to renewables. Without any regulation and standardization, companies will just continue to try to outshine one another on their environmental and social commitments without hard data to back it. This mismatch will become an existential risk to financial instability if, for example, extreme weather pummels a business that did not prepare accordingly.
Environmental activists have pushed for more from companies by proposing shareholder resolutions at annual meetings that ask for more transparency, but have met with mixed success in shareholder votes that don’t bind the company to taking action.
In this regulatory vacuum, voluntary global affiliations have cropped up, including the Net Zero Assets Managers Initiative, representing some $43 trillion in assets, and Climate Action 100+, representing more than $60 trillion. Another of these groups is run out of the Financial Stability Board as a Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a voluntary system that has grown to more than 3,000 companies. The task force’s recommendations tell companies to consider the short-, medium-, and long-term climate impacts, emissions that result from investment decisions, and their operations’ pollution, and account for the changing climate’s consequences for the business. The hundreds of companies that voluntarily comply with these standards aren’t necessarily green or good for the environment, but it’s an extra gold star for their sustainability transparency.
Eight countries, including the UK, have passed laws that will mirror the TFCD’s recommendations, but the US would remain an outlier without the SEC rule. “Investors put their money where they think there’s a good opportunity and good information,” said Steven Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets. “If we don’t have good information, we run the risk of falling behind internationally.”
The SEC’s rule is basically the US playing catch-up, based on standards the mainstream corporate community aligned with TFCD have already backed.
Initially, companies will have to spend extra to comply with the rule — up to $530,000 a year for larger companies by the SEC’s estimate, but it will vary depending on how much companies are doing already on climate disclosure. Typically, the costs of rules shrink over time. Otherwise, the rule itself is quite modest. The SEC is “not saying you should or shouldn’t invest in climate products,” Rothstein said. “They’re just saying, tell investors what you’re doing and do it in a consistent way.”
Environmentalists and some Democratic lawmakers argue the SEC could be doing even more. The SEC does not change how companies disclose climate-related activities like PR campaigns and political influence, the kind of activities that tend to be outsourced to nonprofits that shield their activities from the public. In March, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called it a “failure of nerve that shies away from a perfectly legal, necessary response to the climate danger we face” because political efforts remain “the single most material disclosures a company could make to achieve climate safety.”
Right-wing groups claim financial transparency is an attack on free speech
Unsurprisingly, the SEC is facing immense pressure to withdraw this rule because of the same shadowy political spending that companies don’t have to disclose in the first place. Groups like the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Americans for Prosperity, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have flooded the SEC with comments that argue company free speech would be violated.
Trade groups and right-wing think tanks have argued that requiring companies to report these emissions is akin to violating their First Amendment rights of free speech, pointing to a court case that ruled a regulation requiring the disclosure of conflict-zone minerals would amount to :{“:(style="background-color:#ff9900;"):}::{compelled speech”:(style="background-color:#ff6600;"):}: and violated the companies’ rights.
The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry lobby, has argued the rule “could raise serious First Amendment issues under recent applying strict scrutiny to content-based laws compelling speech.”
The argument has found purchase with conservative lawmakers, like West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey,who picked up the argument in his 2021 letter to Treasury last year. In Congress, 19 Republican senators argued in their submitted comments that the rule is “not within the SEC’s mission to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.” Another 40 Republican representatives wrote that the rule will act to “undermine and shame public companies,” while Republican attorneys general describes the rule as a “total reordering of [the SEC’s] present disclosure regime.”
The attack on regulation under the guise of First Amendment rights has become more familiar in recent years. “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has been steadily giving corporations more and more leeway, more and more rights,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a corporate law expert who has published several books on corporate speech.
The court also opened the door to more of these lawsuits, striking down a California law that required nonprofits to disclose their donors, siding with the Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s argument against disclosing their donors and providing IRS 990 forms to the state. Other legal challenges to campaign finance laws and unions have used the First Amendment.
Legal experts supportive of the SEC rule consider the argument a long shot in courts. “I think that argument is really far-fetched,” Emory’s Georgiev said.
But it’s still worrisome. If it succeeds, whether in courts or as a scare tactic to get the SEC to backtrack, it sets a dangerous precedent for the financial system at large. “If this climate rule is violating the First Amendment, it’s been all nine decades [the SEC has been] violating the First Amendment,” Georgiev said. “They will definitely try it out in courts. At the end of the day, a lot of far-fetched arguments succeed in courts.”
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20892344-comments-to-sec-on-esg-rule#document/p33/a2075289
comments from acc chem, AEI, AFP, API, cato, cei heartland etc CTT, CoC, co2 coalition, conoco phillips, enbridge, inst for free speech, heritage, nam, NMA, noia, lifepoerwed TPPF, WEA western energy? US oil and gas
Comments to SEC on ESG rule
[[why only one of big 4 out front?
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.”
---
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.
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.”
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.]]
good 2018 report
Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) [table 2016 and 2018 scores] Poor Poor ]
ConocoPhillips is a member of WSPA as of 2018, and the company has not taken any steps to distance itself from climate disinformation spread by the group (WSPA 2018)
Since 2013, ConocoPhillips has not been affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which serves as an important conduit for climate science disinformation and policy proposals designed to block climate action (SourceWatch 2018).
ConocoPhillips identifies business units that might be affected by the physical impact of climate change, specifies the magnitude and time frames of the anticipated impacts, and provides a framework for how the company intends to respond (ConocoPhillips 2018a).
• ConocoPhillips provides a detailed analysis of existing and proposed laws and regulations relating to climate change, their possible effects on the company, and how the company will respond (ConocoPhillips 2018a).
• The company discloses some details of corporate governance on global warming emissions management and climate risks and opportunities, including how the board is engaged and which executives are accountable (ConocoPhillips 2018b).
• The company provides above average disclosure of its political spending and has extensive policies and oversight related to political activities in general (CPA 2017).
• ConocoPhillips provides information about direct global warming emissions from its operations and indirect global warming emissions from downstream activity (ConocoPhillips 2017b)...
==
320 heated
...Exxon’s Universe of Energy Center was at Epcot from 1982 through 1996. That’s fascinating, because that’s the exact time span that Exxon went from researching climate change to explicitly denying it. (Exxon’s denial started in the late 80s and picked up steam throughout the 90s).
And this exhibit touting fossil fuels—which again, was to KIDS AT DISNEYWORLD—opened in the same year that Exxon’s manager of environmental affairs, M.B. Glaser, sent a memo out to company executives about the greenhouse effect. This memo noted that fossil fuel combustion, along with clearing of virgin forests, were the primary contributions to the warming trend.
The memo added: “Our best estimate is that doubling of the current concentration could increase average global temperature by about 1.3 degrees celsius to 3.1 degrees celsius.”
Despite that knowledge, the comics and Epcot center explicitly promote fossil fuels as a method of environmental conservation, noted Carroll Muffet, the president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law.
“[Exxon] put out these in conjunction with Disney to teach kids about renewable energy and energy conservation and environmental concerns,” she said. “And it's perhaps unsurprising that what children learn from Mickey and Goofy about energy conservation and environmental concerns was we really need gas, we really need fracking, we win. Nuclear energy is fine. There are a lot of problems with wind and solar. It may work out eventually, but thank goodness for this bountiful resource of oil, gas and tar sands.”
Exxon wasn’t the only one using comic books to reach the youths. In the 1970s, Amoco put out a wildly racist comic book about “The Mochans,” a “primitive” people who wanted to do unseemly things like use renewable energy. The comic was released as part of a study guide for 7th to 12th graders studying economics—which Amoco graciously provided 40,000 copies of to Indiana public schools.
“The industry was teaching kids to be skeptical of regulation, skeptical of the agendas of environmentalists or people who were socially concerned, from their very earliest ages,”Muffett said, “and [they were] constantly emphasizing that anyone who talks about the environment, who talks about human health, should immediately be weighing that and defending it against the economic costs.”
Sound familiar? It should. These are the same refrains the industry uses today in its various attempts to shape the minds of young people, both in schools and in the media. And it’s reflected in the way most political pundits seem to think about what’s possible for climate action. You want to preserve a livable world? Well, how much will it cost?
Here’s one more example of the oil industry getting into teaching economics: Phillips’ Petroleum’s American Enterpriseeducational film series—hosted by none other than William Shatner. (I got my hands on the VHS but it hasn’t arrived yet—it’s taking forever!)
The subtitle is: How Did this America, in its 200 Years on Independence, Become a Nation of Supermarkets, Stock Markets, Skyscrapers and Split Levels; A Country With the Greatest Economic Output in the World? ...
==
abc
for months into the Trump administration, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's allies from Oklahoma contacted Pruitt and his chief of staff trying to get jobs for family friends and a chemical industry lobbyist – and Pruitt himself tried to recruit from the oil and gas industry, according to internal EPA emails.
One of the allies was Oklahoma lawyer Gentner Drummond, who is vying to take Pruitt's former position as state attorney general in the GOP primary runoff in August. The emails were obtained by the Sierra Club through a public records request and provided to ABC News.
"I am aware that you have visited with [redacted] regarding a position within the EPA. I have known [redacted] for most of [redacted] life, and would love to see another Oklahoman at the Agency," Drummond wrote in a June 29, 2017 email to EPA Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson, who is also from Pruitt’s home state of Oklahoma. "I am pleased to call or email Scott. What is your recommendation? The last cell number that I have for Scott is [redacted]."
Although the name of the person being recommended is redacted in the body of the email, the subject of the email reads "RE: Katherine English." Drummond told ABC News that English is a niece of one of his former law partners, and that she had asked him to recommend her for the EPA job.
The exterior of the headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in downtown Washington, D.C., April 2, 2017.
English’s name was hardly unfamiliar at the EPA. For nearly a decade, she had lobbied the EPA and Congress on behalf of chemical corporations. Most recently, she was the director of government affairs at Dow Chemical, and one of the company's leading lobbyists.
In less than an hour, Jackson replied in an email, "Thank you. I know [redacted] really well and that would be fine. Thanks and hope all is well."
Jackson and English go back more than 10 years, when Jackson was chief of staff at the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in Washington and English was a counsel at the committee. They are both alums of the University of Oklahoma as well.
Drummond told ABC News that he didn't know which position English was seeking at the EPA, but said that he just knew that English was a qualified lawyer who had worked in Washington for a long time dealing with environmental matters. Drummond said he had not personally interacted with Pruitt, but knew of him as his capacity as a former state attorney general.
A couple of weeks later, Drummond emailed Jackson again: "I have left Scott a voice message and a text but have not heard back, which is understandable given his ever-expanding role. What are your thoughts on a position for [redacted] within the Agency?"
Drummond said he never heard back from Jackson after that last email.
English was not reachable for an immediate comment.
The emails show that Drummond was just one of many of Pruitt's old allies asking about positions at the EPA.
For example, the emails reveal details about contacts between Jackson and lobbyist J. Steven Hart, a longtime Pruitt supporter. Pruitt rented a Capitol Hill condofrom Hart’s wife Vicki Hart – also a Washington lobbyist – for a below market rate. In the emails, Hart invited Jackson out to dinner and often asked him for favors – including trying to get jobs at the EPA for Hart's friends. Both Hart and Pruitt have denied Hart tried to guide and influence EPA decisions.
Hart sent an email to Jackson in April 2017 about a family friend who had applied for a job at the EPA. Jimmy Guiliano was seeking a policy position at the agency when Hart wrote to Jackson that his wife, Pruitt's landlord, spoke to Pruitt directly and he was following up on the matter.
"He [Pruitt] told Vicki to talk to you about how to handle this," Hart wrote Jackson.
Jackson responded "on it" after Hart wrote that Guliano was "important to us." In a statement to ABC News, EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said "the Agency accepts career recommendations from a number of acquaintances. Ultimately, Mr. Guiliano was not hired."
According to the emails, Hart also recommended candidates for the Science Advisory Board on behalf of a client, Dennis Treacy, currently a board member of the Smithfield Foundation – the charitable arm of Smithfield Foods. The EPA also sought recommendations for the advisory board from major Trump donor Doug Deason and a former advisory board member Bryan Shaw.
The emails also appear to indicate that the EPA has been recruiting agency employees from the oil and gas industry, which has backed Pruitt since his time as attorney general in Oklahoma.
According to an email from ConocoPhillips lobbyist Kevin Avery, Pruitt "made a plea for candidates to fill some of the regional director positions within the agency" when he met with the American Petroleum Institute executives in March last year. ConocoPhillips was one of the oil companies that met up with Pruitt at the meeting.
On March 27, just a week after the meeting, Avery reached out to one ofPruitt's closest aides, Samantha Dravis,with recommendations from the company.
"As the communique indicates API member companies were asked to consider providing names of candidates who may be interested in government service," ConocoPhillips spokesperson Daren Beaudo said in a statement to ABC News. "We submitted two candidates for consideration at the EPA’s request. We were not involved in any other aspect of the process, and neither was ultimately appointed."
Meanwhile, Henry Darwin, a former state of Arizona Chief of Operations who joined the EPA as the assistant deputy secretary in July last year, also got his wife a job at the agency.
While negotiating his potential job offer at the EPA in May 2017, Darwin expressed concerns about the potential salary to Jackson, and asked if his wife, who is a "legitimate environmental professional" can also have a job at the EPA.
"It would help our financial decision immensely," Darwin wrote to Jackson. "If not out of the question, I would be happy to forward her resume and references (which I would suggest you check - everyone loves her almost as much as I do)."
Henry Darwin's wife, Veronica Darwin, eventually got a job at the EPA as a senior adviser to the administrator for Land and Emergency Management.
“Veronica Darwin has spent more than 18 years working extensively on environmental waste issues that included roles as a compliance officer with EPA’s Region 9 office and as deputy division director for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality’s Waste Divisions Program," EPA spokesperson Kelsi Daniell said in a statement to ABC News. "As EPA was looking to bolster its Superfund program and OLEM team, Ms. Darwin was an ideal fit for her current role."
An anti-nepotism statute to a presidential appointment in the executive branch, a public official may not "advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official."
It is unclear whether there is a statute that prohibits a candidate for a politically appointed position from recommending a family member for a job at the same agency.
==
https://www.ecowatch.com/washington-carbon-tax-big-oil-2616808725.html
Oil Pours Record $30M to Sway Voters Against Nation's First Carbon Tax
If voters approve Initiative 1631 on Nov. 6, Washington state will take a significant step in climate action by becoming the first state in the nation to enact a fee on carbon emissions. That is, unless Big Oil can stop it.
The U.S. oil industry has pumped a record $30 million to stop the carbon tax, which environmentalists have tried to enact for years, Reuters reported, citing state data. Meanwhile, proponents—including green groups and climate activist billionaires Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs—have spent $15.2 million.
"With Big Oil spending $30 million, that makes it a real fight," Bill Holland, state policy director for the League of Conservation Voters, told Reuters. "It has been a frightening amount of money."
Washington ranks fifth in the nation in crude oil refining capacity for making gasoline and other petroleum products, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Initiative 1631 imposes a starting fee of $15 per metric ton on carbon emissions, beginning in 2020. This fee rises $2 every year until the state hits its 2035 emissions reductions goals and is on track to meet its 2050 goals. If passed, the tax is expected to generate $2.3 billion in revenue for green infrastructure, clean transportation and help communities most impacted by pollution.
A recent statewide Crosscut/Elway Poll among registered voters shows 50 percent approval of the measure, 36 percent opposed and 14 percent undecided, The opposition is led by the Western States Petroleum Association, a trade organization that has raised $31.2 million from energy companies and business groups for the "No on 1631" campaign—the most money ever spent in Washington state history to defeat a ballot initiative.
BP America contributed the most with $11.5 million, followed by $7.2 million from Phillips 66 and Andeavor with $4.4 million, Reuters said. The three energy companies have refineries in the state. American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and Valero Energy Corporation also donated funds.
The money has been spent on digital ads, flyers, mailers and television ads aired during this month's Major League Baseball World Series. Opponents say the tax will "be paid by Washington families and small businesses."
RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB
- Hidden gem for Big Oil in carbon tax plan: an end to climate liability ... ›
- A carbon tax supported by big oil and Bush-era lobbyists. What? - Vox ›
- Taxing Carbon May Sound Like a Good Idea But Does It Work? ›
==
no lnx many
https://www.ecowatch.com/exxonmobil-and-chevron-distorting-climate-science-2614802732.html
Yes, ExxonMobil and Chevron Are Still Distorting Climate Science
By Brenda Ekwurzel
If you look at headlines from the last year, ExxonMobil, Chevron and other major fossil fuel companies have seemingly turned a new page on climate change. Recently, ExxonMobil received major kudos for giving $1 million to Americans for Carbon Dividends, a lobbying offshoot of the industry-backed Climate Leadership Council. Shortly before that, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Occidental Petroleum got good press for each pledging $100 million to the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which amounts to less than one percent of their capital and exploration budget for 2018 (ExxonMobil's is $28 billion while Chevron's is $15.8 billion). Companies have also touted their support for the Paris climate agreement as well as their research and investments in renewables.
:{
}:
But, as I and my colleagues have analyzed, this "support" is a PR distraction when these companies are keeping up business-as-usual. They intend to continue producing, marketing and selling fossil fuels at current levels for the foreseeable future, which runs counter to the steep reductions in carbon dioxide and methane emissions needed to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Tuesday the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a scorecard, which analyzed what eight major fossil fuel companies are saying they're doing about climate change, and just how much these companies are doing to drastically lower their emissions.
What did we find? Contrary to media reports and shiny company press releases, most of these major fossil fuel companies continue to mischaracterize climate science.
Why is this important? Any company that makes, markets and sells a product that is the primary cause of climate change has a responsibility to stay on top of and clearly communicate with the public scientific developments regarding their product. Misrepresenting climate science and underplaying the urgency of action allows companies to justify their business as usual practices all while climate impacts, including increasingly frequent and severe weather events such as Hurricanes Harvey and Florence, get worse and costlier. Releasing inaccurate statements allows companies to "check the box" for voicing belief in climate change, while continuing to funnel tens of tens of millions of dollars to climate-denying politicians, trade associations and other industry groups that do the dirty work of opposing climate policies.
Major Fossil Fuel Companies Fail to Accurately Represent Climate Science
We measured whether companies consistently and accurately acknowledged the scientific evidence of climate change in their public platforms. Overall, they didn't do great.
We found that five of the eight companies we studied had made public statements on climate change that underplayed the need to urgently reduce emissions, emphasized scientific uncertainty and/or were blatantly incorrect. Only BP amended its statement after UCS and Barnard College called the company out for its deceptive language.
These statements are surprising since these companies have known about climate change for at least four decades now, which would be plenty of time to figure how to make it a priority to accurately convey the latest developments in climate science. Since 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued climate assessments which companies can rely on. The IPCC's Fifth Assessment (2014) represents the latest* mainstream scientific consensus on climate change and it clearly states that "It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century." The primary human influence is through the burning of fossil fuels.
*(Earlier this month, this group released a special report detailing the impacts of a global average temperature increase of 1.5C relative to 2C above pre-industrial levels, and pathways to limit temperature increase to that level. See my colleagues' blog series about what the report means for us and for climate policy).
Let's see how oil and gas company statements on climate change stacked up.
ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil employs a dedicated climate change team and boasts about leading research around cutting-edge technology, such as carbon capture and storage. Yet the company's statements on climate change, including the one above, do not consistently reflect the current scientific consensus around the issue.
Contrary to ExxonMobil's claims, scientific understanding of the likelihood, magnitude and time frame of climate impacts as tied to human-caused climate change has advanced greatly. Research has over the last decade developed to the point where scientists can identify and quantify the part human-caused climate change plays in many types of extreme weather and other climate impacts. For many impacts, the likelihood is high; the magnitude is severe; and the timeframe is now. Scientists have shown, for example, that the likelihood of heat wave similar in magnitude to the one that hit Europe in 2003—during which over 30,000 people died—has doubled. Scientists have also shown that human-caused climate change made the record rainfall that hit Houston during Hurricane Harvey roughly three times more likely and 15 percent more intense.
No matter how much ExxonMobil talks about using oil to lubricate wind turbines, the company knows that most of its oil and gas are being burnt by cars, by energy generation, by human activity—which is the primary cause of climate change.
Chevron
Chevron's statement misrepresents the IPCC Fifth Assessment's conclusions, as mentioned earlier, that human activity is "extremely likely" to be the dominant driver of warming since the 1950s, not simply one possible cause of many possible causes, as is implied by Chevron's phrase "due in part." Chevron's seemingly subtle shift in wording is significant because the report shows that the overwhelming majority of the world's top researchers agree that burning fossil fuels is by far and away the largest contributor to climate change. Injecting any doubt or uncertainty into that conclusion is disingenuous at best, and outright deceiving at worst.
Above: Chevron Corporation. 2018. Climate change resilience: A framework for decision making. Online here, accessed Oct. 15.
If Chevron is going to quote the IPCC, the company should, at the very least, cut-and-paste from the panel's report.
ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips's statement on climate science suggests the last decade-worth of climate research, including the most recent IPCC report, simply doesn't exist.
:{
}:
Above: ConocoPhillips. No date. Climate change position. Online here, accessed Oct. 15.
:{
}:
There are three major issues with the company's statement: 1) the claim that increasing atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping gases "can lead" rather than "are leading" to climate change, as has been established since at least the IPCC third assessment report, is followed by 2) highlighting uncertainties on the first point, when there are none and 3) proposing that it is sufficient for the company to "manage" global warming emissions rather than reducing them. Alone, each of these statements is problematic and inaccurately represents the mainstream scientific consensus. Together, they subvert the public's understanding of climate science and supply the company with an alibi for continuing to extract, sell and profit off of fossil fuels.
BP – Old and New
When we analyzed BP's statements from 2018 we found similarly misinforming language. But when we pointed the problematic language out to company representatives (as we did with all eight companies studied), BP promptly made changes that brought its statement back in line with climate science. As you can see in the first attempt, BP emphasizes scientific uncertainty by referring to atmospheric carbon's "possible" climate impact. Svante Arrhenius, more than a century ago, published the fundamental scientific principle that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration results in changes to Earth's temperature.
Above: BP PLC. 2018a. Energy and the environment. Online here, accessed May 22.
BP's new statement, on the other hand, is an excellent example of an accurate copy-and-paste. The company's new statement mentions the IPCC 5th Assessment and, unlike Chevron, gets its facts right in stating that human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels, is extremely likely to be the primary driver of climate change.
Above: BP PLC. No date. Energy and the environment. Online here, accessed Oct. 15.
Shell
Above: First quote: Royal Dutch Shell Corporation. No date. Climate change and energy transitions. Online here, accessed, Oct. 15. Second quote: Royal Dutch Shell Corporation. 2018c. Energy Transition. Online here, accessed July 10.
Shell's PR machine has gone into overdrive recently in an effort to paint the company as a climate leader.While Shell falls short in a number of areas, its statements on climate science and the need to reach net-zero emissions are accurate and consistent. There's no equivocating, no hedging, no backsliding, no prevaricating and no hiding inaccurate climate statements on less popular pages of its website. Climate change is real, it's caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, and we need to make changes immediately. Check, check and check.
Additional Studies on the Language of Climate Deception
Several peer-reviewed academic papers have documented how fossil fuel companies have used public communications to mislead the public about the state of climate science and its implications. A University of Reading study published this year showed that up until the mid-2000s, climate change was discussed as a problem with a solution; more recently fossil fuel company language has portrayed climate change as unpredictable and unknowable. Last year, Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes analyzed 187 climate change communications by ExxonMobil and found that while company's scientists were quietly contributing to climate science and writing reports about it to company executives, the company was paying for advertisements that told a different story.
Watchdogging Matters
Whether through outright climate denial, sowing public confusion on climate science, or funding of third-party groups that spread climate disinformation, each of these companies has tried to obscure climate science. But, as we saw with BP, the threat of public exposure and pressure apparently pushed the company to correct its website. As with most companies, major fossil fuel companies want to avoid the reputational risk of being branded climate deniers. This is why public watchdogging really matters.
Fossil fuel companies need to acknowledge scientific evidence that shows
- The extraction and burning of their product is the main driver of climate change and,
- avoiding the worst climate impacts requires dramatic cuts to carbon emissions immediately.
UCS and members of our science network and supporters will continue to hold these companies accountable for what they (and their trade groups) say and do on climate change.
Brenda Ekwurzel is a senior climate scientist and the director of climate science at UCS.
RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB
ExxonMobil's Support for a Carbon Tax Is a Sham ›
Why Is ExxonMobil Still Funding Climate Science Denier Groups? ›
==
==
omg borders on dis cap'l, massive subsidies
PORT ARTHUR, Texas (AP) — As the nation plans new defenses against the more powerful storms and higher tides expected from climate change, one project stands out: an ambitious proposal to build a nearly 60-mile “spine” of concrete seawalls, earthen barriers, floating gates and steel levees on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Like other oceanfront projects, this one would protect homes, delicate ecosystems and vital infrastructure, but it also has another priority — to shield some of the crown jewels of the petroleum industry, which is blamed for contributing to global warming and now wants the federal government to build safeguards against the consequences of it.
The plan is focused on a stretch of coastline that runs from the Louisiana border to industrial enclaves south of Houston that are home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of petrochemical facilities, including most of Texas’ 30 refineries, which represent 30 percent of the nation’s refining capacity.
Texas is seeking at least $12 billion for the full coastal spine, with nearly all of it coming from public funds. Last month, the government fast-tracked an initial $3.9 billion for three separate, smaller storm barrier projects that would specifically protect oil facilities.
That followed Hurricane Harvey, which roared ashore last Aug. 25 and swamped Houston and parts of the coast, temporarily knocking out a quarter of the area’s oil refining capacity and causing average gasoline prices to jump 28 cents a gallon nationwide. Many Republicans argue that the Texas oil projects belong at the top of Washington’s spending list.
“Our overall economy, not only in Texas but in the entire country, is so much at risk from a high storm surge,” said Matt Sebesta, a Republican who as Brazoria County judge oversees a swath of Gulf Coast.
But the idea of taxpayers around the country paying to protect refineries worth billions, and in a state where top politicians still dispute climate change’s validity, doesn’t sit well with some.
“The oil and gas industry is getting a free ride,” said Brandt Mannchen, a member of the Sierra Club’s executive committee in Houston. “You don’t hear the industry making a peep about paying for any of this and why should they? There’s all this push like, ‘Please Senator Cornyn, Please Senator Cruz, we need money for this and that.’”
Normally outspoken critics of federal spending, Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz both backed using taxpayer funds to fortify the oil facilities’ protections and the Texas coast. Cruz called it “a tremendous step forward.”
Federal, state and local money is also bolstering defenses elsewhere, including on New York’s Staten Island, around Atlantic City, New Jersey, and in other communities hammered by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Construction in Texas could begin in several months on the three sections of storm barrier. While plans are still being finalized, some dirt levees will be raised to about 17 feet high, and 6 miles of 19-foot-tall floodwalls would be built or strengthened around Port Arthur, a Texas-Louisiana border locale of pungent chemical smells and towering knots of steel pipes.
The town of 55,000 includes the Saudi-controlled Motiva oil refinery, the nation’s largest, as well as refineries owned by oil giants Valero Energy Corp. and Total S.A. There are also almost a dozen petrochemical facilities.
“You’re looking at a lot of people, a lot of homes, but really a lot of industry,” said Steve Sherrill, an Army Corps of Engineers resident engineer in Port Arthur, as he peered over a Gulf tributary lined with chunks of granite and metal gates, much of which is set to be reinforced.
The second barrier project features around 25 miles of new levees and seawalls in nearby Orange County, whereChevron, DuPont and other companies have facilities. The third would extend and heighten seawalls around Freeport, home to a Phillips 66 export terminal for liquefied natural gas and nearby refinery, as well as several chemical facilities....
https://www.ecowatch.com/pruitt-epa-hiring-oil-gas-2581508218.html
Pruitt reached out to the oil and gas industry for help in filling vacant positions in the agency, according to emails obtained by the Sierra Club and shared with Buzzfeed News.
"I understand that Administrator Pruitt met with [American Petroleum Institute] executives last week and he made a plea for candidates to fill some of the regional director positions within the agency," a manager at oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips wrote to former Pruitt aide Samantha Dravis last March, before asking where he could send a resume from an interested former employee.
While none of the three candidates the ConocoPhillips manager suggested for EPA were hired by the agency, former EPA officials expressed surprise at the emails. "It would be highly unusual to go to a specific industry to try to recruit," former George W. Bush EPA head Christine Todd Whitman told Buzzfeed. "We did not go out and recruit. There was more applying to us and our sorting through them."
As reported by Buzzfeed:
"Former EPA regional director Judith Enck was shocked to hear about Pruitt's recruiting. 'I think it's troubling the head of the EPA is asking the fossil fuel industry for staff recommendations for chief positions,' Enck told BuzzFeed News.
Michael Brune, Sierra Club's executive director, was also dismayed. 'This is Scott Pruitt trying to outsource the job to protect our air and water to the exact people responsible for polluting them,' Brune said in a statement emailed to BuzzFeed News."
==
many art'ls eg pipeline protest bayou
explosions
http://www.researchandideas.com/index.php?title=Phillips_66:_Ponca_City_Refinery
http://www.globalpossibilities.org/landmark-human-rights-case-against-worlds-biggest-fossil-fuel-firms-pushes-on/
Landmark Human Rights Case Against World’s Biggest Fossil Fuel Firms Pushes On
Dec 29, 2016 by Casey Coates Danson
Environment
This is the first-ever human rights violations case due to climate injustice alleged against carbon majors.
By Ping Manongdo / Eco-Business
December 24, 2016
:{The Philippines Commission on Human Rights has announced that it is moving forward with the next steps in the world’s first-ever case against major fossil fuel companies for alleged human rights abuses.
The commission is to take to task oil giants such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Total, BHP Billiton, Suncor and ConocoPhillips for their alleged role in causing death and financial loss on a massive scale as a result of climate-induced disasters in the archipelago.}:
A month after concluding the first phase of their investigation, which looked at scientific evidence linking climate change and fossil fuel operations, CHR commissioner Roberto Eugenio T. Cadiz, who leads the national investigative body for the case, said they are now ready to push forward with public hearings, beginning in April 2017.
Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) devastation. Many houses were wiped out by container vans that were pushed by the typhoon from a nearby port in Tacloban, Leyte, Philippines. Image: Asian Development Bank, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Cadiz said they have secured responses from 20 out of the 47 fossil fuel companies involved in the case as of December 8.
The responses were either sent to CHR directly or to the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (BHRRC), a New York-based advocacy group that tracks the human rights policies and performance of businesses.
In a letter addressed to BHRRC, American company ConocoPhillips, which claims to be the world’s largest independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company, said they challenged the jurisdiction of the legal proceedings arguing that their company does not have operations in the Philippines.
“We operate responsibly and take climate change issues seriously; managing greenhouse gas emissions in our operations and integrating climate-change related activities and goals into our business planning,” Sabrina Watkins, ConocoPhillips’ head of sustainable development, said in the statement.
Repsol, a global energy producer based in Madrid, confirmed in a letter sent to BHRRC on November 8, that they sent a reply to the CHR but are unable to disclose details due to the confidentiality rules of the government body.
Russian company Lukoil for their part said that they have now developed and are implementing what they call a Biodiversity Protection Program focused on “undoing harm” to marine resources and “reclaiming oil contaminated land.”
The company further said that it has been aiming to prevent water pollution by using “zero pollution” technology in its off-shore operations since 1997. With this technology, not a single item of waste will pass into the water, the company said in a statement.
The CHR said the petitioners would be ready with a consolidated response by February 14, 2017.
==
an "international, integrated energy company. It is the third largest integrated energy company in the United States, based on market capitalization, and oil and gas reserves and production. Worldwide it is the sixth largest publicly owned energy company, based on oil and gas reserves, and the fifth largest refiner."[1]
"Headquartered inHouston, Texas, ConocoPhillips operates in more than 40 countries. The company has approximately 38,700 employees worldwide and assets of $173 billion. ConocoPhillips stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol COP."
In 2002, Conoco merged with Phillips. In 2000, Phillips had acquired ARCO’s Alaska crude oil holdings and in2001 it purchased Tosco—the largest independent refiner and marketer of petroleum products in the U.S. at the time.
Today, CP is the biggest natural-gas producer in North America thanks to its acquisition of Burlington Resources in 2005. It's the No. 2 oil refiner in the U.S. behind BP. Its global oil reserves are 5.7 billion (making it 4th among the large publicly traded oil companies). 2007 profits were $11.9 billion, down from 2006 because of the nationalization of its oil holdings in VZ.
Support for the American Legislative Exchange Council
ConocoPhillips was a "Director" level sponsor of 2011 American Legislative Exchange Council Annual Conference, which in 2010, equated to $10,000.[1]
| About ALEC |
|---|
| ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our PRWatch.org site. |
Overview
ConocoPhillips has "four core activities" worldwide:
- Petroleum exploration and production.
- Petroleum refining, marketing, supply and transportation.
- Natural gas gathering, processing and marketing, including a 30.3 percent interest in Duke Energy Field Services.
- Chemicals and plastics production and distribution through a 50 percent interest in Chevron Phillips Chemical Company.
ConocoPhillips is known worldwide for its technological expertise in deepwater exploration and production, reservoir management and exploitation, 3-D seismic, high-grade petroleum coke upgrading and sulfur removal. In addition, the company has two emerging businesses under development which hold significant future potential - natural gas refining and power generation.
Revenues and tax breaks
In the first half of 2012, ConocoPhillips reported total profits of $5.2 billion. It is ranked as the ninth-largest company in the world in the Global Fortune 500.[2] ConocoPhillips reported a 2012 third-quarter profit of $1.8 billion.[3]
ConocoPhillips had a 2011 profit of $12.4 billion and received an estimated $600 million dollars in tax breaks.[4]
US Expansion Plans
Plans $7 billion in downstream investments from 2008-2013 to boost processing of cheaper types of crude oil by 5 percent, or 365,000 barrels per day. The projects are designed to better refine sulphur diesel and jet fuel from less expensive but difficult to refine heavy sour crudes and Canadian oil sands. [2]
Refineries
- Borger, TX – currently refining Canadian tar sand crude.
- Billings, MT – currently refining Canadian tar sand crude.
- Ponca City, OK – may be refining Canadian tar sands.
- Wood River, IL - currently refining Canadian tar sand crude
Gas export terminals
Freeport LNG Development, L.P. designed, built and operates the Freeport LNG receiving and regasification terminal in Freeport, Texas. ConocoPhillips has bought two-thirds of the capacity of Freeport LNG and Dow Chemical the remaining third. Construction began in 2005 and was originally planned for LNG import, but is shifting to exports,[5] approved by the DOE in 2013 and slated for export of 1.4 billion cubic feet per day by 2020.[6]
Environment
"ConocoPhillips, in a well-publicized partnership with food giant Tyson to manufacture alternative fuels from animal fats, abruptly halted their plans last year when these initiatives failed to receive Federal subsidies." [7]
Tar Sand Production, Transporting, Refining
ConocoPhillips owns 9.03% of the joint venture, Syncrude with ExxonMobil, Canadian Oil Sands Trust, Murphy Oil, Mocal Energy, Nexen Inc., and Petro-Canada.
In 2003, ConocoPhillips began its Alberta Surmont oil sands project. Construction began in 2004, and production in 2006.
On October 5, 2006, ConocoPhillips publicly announced the formation of a joint venture with EnCana Corporation to create an integrated North American heavy-oil business. The venture consists of two 50/50 business ventures—a Canadian upstream general partnership, FCCL Oil Sands Partnership, and a U.S. downstream limited liability company, WRB Refining LLC. According to the press release, “JPMorgan Chase acted as advisor to ConocoPhillips on this transaction, andCredit Suisse acted as advisor to EnCana.”
FCCL Oil Sands Partnership (FCCL)—50 percent owned business venture with EnCana—produces heavy-oil in the Athabasca oil sands in northeast Alberta, as well as transports and sells the bitumen blend.
WRB Refining LLC (WRB)—50 percent owned business venture with EnCana—processes crude oil at the Wood River and Borger refineries, as well as purchases and transports all feedstocks for the refineries and sells the refined products.
Keystone Oil Pipeline
In December 2007, CP acquired a 50 percent equity interest in the Keystone Pipeline to form a 50/50 joint venture with TransCanada Corporation. Construction began on the pipeline in 2008. Original plans were to construct a crude oil pipeline originating in Hardisty, Alberta, with delivery points at Wood River and Patoka, Illinois, and Cushing, Oklahoma.
Political contributions
ConocoPhillips gave $313,000 to federal candidates in the 05/06 election cycle through its political action committee (PAC) - 9% to Democrats, 90% to Republicans, and 1% to other parties. [8]
Lobbying
In 2011, ConocoPhillips spent over $20 million lobbying Congress, making it the top spender of the oil and gas industry.[9]
"A senior Justice Department official who recently resigned her post bought a nearly $1 million vacation home with a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips months before approving consent decrees that would give the oil company more time to pay millions of dollars in fines and meet pollution-cleanup rules at some of its refineries," reported the Washington Post in February 2007. The official, former assistant attorney general on environment and natural resources issues Sue Ellen Wooldridge, "bought a $980,000 home on Kiawah Island, S.C., last March with ConocoPhillips lobbyist Don R. Duncan. A third owner of the house is J. Steven Griles, a former deputy interior secretary, who has been informed he is a target in the federal investigation of Jack Abramoff's lobbying activities." [3]
The company spent $1,918,291 for lobbying in 2006. $140,000 of this total went to an outside lobbying firm Hunton & Williams. [10]
:{
}:
http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=2188
Personnel
2012 pay:
- By 2012, ConocoPhillips outgoing CEO James Mulva received over $15 million in yearly compensation, earning nearly $80 million over five years.[11]
Executives and 2006 pay:
- James J. Mulva, Chief Executive Officer, $31,340,00[12]
- William B. Berry, Divisional Executive Vice President, $5,790,641[13]
- John A. Carrig, Chief Financial Officer, $11,682,435[14]
- James L. Gallogly, Divisional Executive Vice President, $4,169,688[15]
Board of Directors: [16]
- Richard L. Armitage, President of Armitage International LLC
- Richard H. Auchinleck, Former President and CEO of Gulf Canada Resources Limited
- Norman R. Augustine, Chairman of Executive Committee of Board of Directors, Lockheed Martin Corporation
- James E. Copeland, Jr., Former Chief Executive Officer of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
- Kenneth M. Duberstein, Chairman and CEO of the The Duberstein Group
- Ruth R. Harkin, Former Senior VP International Affairs and Government Relations for United Technologies Corporation
- Charles C. Krulak, Former Chairman and CEO of MBNA Europe Bank Limited
- Harold McGraw III, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of The McGraw-Hill Companies
- J. J. Mulva, Chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips
- Harald Norvik, Chairman and Partner of Econ Management AS
- William K. Reilly, President and CEO of Aqua International Partners
- William R. Rhodes, Senior Vice Chairman of Citigroup, Inc.
- J. Stapleton Roy, Managing Director of Kissinger Associates, Inc.
- Bobby S. Shackouls, Former Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Burlington Resources Inc.
- Victoria J. Tschinkel, Former Director of the Florida Nature Conservancy
- Kathryn C. Turner, Chairperson and CEO of Standard Technology, Inc.
- William E. Wade, Jr., Former President of Atlantic Richfield Company
Contact information
P.O. Box 2197
Houston, TX 77252-2197
Phone: (281) 293-1000
Web: http://www.conocophillips.com
Resources
Related SourceWatch articles
- Alaska's Future
- Oil industry
- Rodney J. MacAlister
- Archie W. Dunham - former chair
References
- ↑ [American Legislative Exchange Council, 2011 Conference Sponsors, conference brochure on file with CMD, August 11, 2011]
- ↑ Noreen Nielsen and Jackie Weidman, "ConocoPhillips By The Numbers: $5.2 Billion in 2012 Profits, $21 Million Lobbying Congress In Past 18 Months," Climate Progress, July 25, 2012.
- ↑ "ConocoPhillips By The Numbers: Earns $1.8 Billion Profit, Gets $600 Million In Annual Tax Breaks," Climate Progress, Oct. 25, 2012.
- ↑ "Romney Tax Plan: Many Happy Returns for Big Oil," Center for American Progress, July 26, 2012.
- ↑ "Freeport: Welcome to our website," Freeport LNG Development, accessed April 2012.
- ↑ Zack Colman, "DOE gives green light to controversial natural gas export project," The Hill, May 17, 2013.
- ↑ "The Politics of Climate Change", O'Dwyer Magazine, Feb. 2010.
- ↑ 2006 PAC Summary Data, Open Secrets.
- ↑ Noreen Nielsen and Jackie Weidman, "ConocoPhillips By The Numbers: $5.2 Billion in 2012 Profits, $21 Million Lobbying Congress In Past 18 Months," Climate Progress, July 25, 2012.
- ↑ ConocoPhillips lobbying expenses, Open Secrets.
- ↑ Noreen Nielsen and Jackie Weidman, "ConocoPhillips By The Numbers: $5.2 Billion in 2012 Profits, $21 Million Lobbying Congress In Past 18 Months," Climate Progress, July 25, 2012.
- ↑ James J Mulva, Forbes, accessed February 2008.
- ↑ William B Berry, Forbes, accessed February 2008.
- ↑ John A Carrig, Forbes, accessed February 2008.
- ↑ James L Gallogly, Forbes, accessed February 2008.
- ↑ ConocoPhillips board of directors, accessed June 2007.
External articles
- Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi, "Justice Official Bought Vacation Home With Oil Lobbyist," Washington Post, February 15, 2007.
==
[http://grist.org/news/phillips-66-kills-hundreds-of-birds-in-texas-gets-fined-by-feds/ Phillips 66 kills hundreds of birds in Texas, gets fined by feds]
cancer alley:
Can Cancer Alley See Environmental Justice?
Like other cases of environmental justice, it's no accident that the population in cancer alley is primarily minority and low-income. The alarming cancer rates are most often associated to all the industrial and petrochemical plants nearby, although Shell Oil has commissioned studies seeking to prove the cancer rate isn't actually higher in cancer alley.
But many don't buy it. This from pollutionissues.com:
Industrial accidents and accidental releases are common occurrences in cancer alley. For instance, in 1994 Condea Vista (Conoco) located in Lake Charles reported thirty-nine chemical accidents that released 129,500 pounds of chemicals. The following year, Condea Vista reported ninety accidental chemical releases. In 1997 the company was charged with contaminating local groundwater supplies by discharging between 19 to 47 million pounds of ethylene dichloride (EDC), a suspected human carcinogen, into a local stream. In 1999 hundreds of unskilled laborers filed suit against Condea Vista, claiming they were exposed to EDC while cleaning up a spill from a leaking underground pipeline.
J. Steven Griles served as Deputy Secretary of the Interior from 2001 until resigning in 2004. In 2004, the DOI’s own inspector general called Griles a “train wreck waiting to happen.” Prior to joining the Bush administration, Griles was a coal industry lobbyist. Griles was the highest ranking member of the Bush administration to be sent to prison during the Abramoff scandal. He was sentenced to a ten months imprisonment after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. Days after his guilty plea, he would marry his DOI subordinate Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who was part of an ethics scandal involving the purchase of a home with ConocoPhillips lobbyist. Prior to joining the Bush administration, Griles served in the Reagan administration’s DOI then became a coal industry lobbyist with National Environmental Strategies, Inc. Griles continued receiving payment of $284,000 a year from the coal lobbying firm as he served as DOI Deputy Secretary. While at the DOI, he arranged multiple meetings with former oil and gas industry clients and even awarded $2 million in federal contracts to a former client.Griles advised Jack Abramoff on using members of Congress to pressure the DOI and gave him information on internal decision making within the agency. Before his conviction, Griles left the White House to become a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips.
Sue Ellen Wooldridge
Deputy Chief of Staff for Sec. Gale Norton
• Purchased $980,000 home with J. Steven Griles and a ConocoPhillips lobbyist.
• Delayed $500 million pollution cleanup for ConocoPhillips.
Sue Ellen Wooldridge was the Deputy Chief of Staff for DOI Secretary Gale Norton. During her time at DOI where she provided the agency with ethics advice, Wooldridge became romantically involved with J. Steven Griles. Wooldridge went on to the Department of Justice as an attorney in charge of environmental and natural resources. Wooldridge and her romantic partner and once-superior Griles purchased a $980,000 home in March 2006 in South Carolina along with a third buyer: Don R. Duncan, a lobbyist for ConoPhillips. Less than a year after the three purchased the home, Wooldridge delayed $500 million pollution cleanup of a superfund site run by ConocoPhillips. Three days after Griles plead guilty, Wooldridge and he were married.
http://thinkprogress.org/report/interior-scandals-under-bush/
==
ConocoPhillips (Figure 10, p. 28) provides another
example of the inconsistency of executive congressional
testimony with corporate behavior elsewhere.
At a May 2008 hearing before the Senate
Judiciary Committee, a company executive testified,
“ConocoPhillips has acknowledged the
scientific consensus that human activity. . . is contributing
to increased concentrations of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere that can lead to
adverse changes in global climate” (Lowe 2008).
He further stated that the company supported
“a mandatory national framework in the U.S. for
reducing carbon dioxide emissions” (Lowe 2008).
Yet shortly before climate legislation was introduced
in the Senate in February 2010, Conoco-
Phillips (along with Caterpillar Inc., BP, Marsh, and
Xerox) withdrew from the U.S. Climate Action Partnership,
a group of corporations that advocates
for policy action (Burnham 2010). Subsequently,
ConocoPhillips began criticizing the legislation,
and it set up a political-action webpage asking
employees to call legislators and express opposition
to that climate bill (ConocoPhillips 2009).
ucs 5/12
bio
ConocoPhillips is one of the six supermajor oil companies, with operations in 30 countries and $155 billion in assets. It is the sixth largest company in the U.S. and is the third largest U.S. oil company after ExxonMobil and Chevron. ConocoPhillips is the largest producer of natural gas in North America and is third to BP and Chevron in U.S. oil production. Conoco's history stems back to 1875 as a Utah kerosene company, becoming ConocoPhillips after a merger in 2002. The company also owns Tosco and Burlington Resources, and the Union 76 brand.
With the exception of a dramatic loss in 2008 due to a poorly timed merger, ConocoPhillips is consistently one of the most profitable companies in the world. Their net income from 2005-2009 was $28.78 billion, and another $9.3 billion has been made in the first three quarters of 2010.
Evidence
ConocoPhillips facilities release over 8.8 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, over 5 million of which come from the Sweeny plant in Old Ocean, Texas (data from CARMA).
ConocoPhillips’ executives have ties to the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron, and BP.
From 2006-2010, ConocoPhillips has spent almost $50 million on lobbying and another $2 million in political contributions since the 2004 election cycle. This money has successfully weakened bills that are counter to the company’s ambitions—tar sands expansion, hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, offshore oil drilling, pipeline expansion in Alaska, and chemical manufacturing. In 2010 alone, the company spent over $16 million on a massive lobbying effort, trumping other oil and gas company lobbying expenditures.
The Political Economy Research Institute ranks ConocoPhillips number 11 on their list of the 100 worst U.S. polluters, higher than any other energy company. According to the company’s records, 64.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (or CO2 equivalent of more potent greenhouse gases, such as methane) were released in 2008. In 2010, ConocoPhillips was fined $175,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency for violating the Clean Air Act through the release of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and other chemicals on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation.
ConocoPhillips worked directly within the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) to influence the outcome of House and Senate bills. ConocoPhillips and BP dropped their membership from USCAP in February. At that point, progress on passing a climate bill in the Senate was clearly obstructed.
In cooperation with Shell and BP, ConocoPhillips attemped to add language to Senate climate legislation that would have ensured the EPA could not play a role in hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. Hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") has been tied to water contamination, leading to health problems and even
through the undisclosed chemicals used in fracking, material released underground in the process, and the gas itself.
As was revealed with
, ConocoPhillip’s spill response plan in the Gulf of Mexico is almost identical to BP’s. ConocoPhillip’s report includes the references to walrus protection and contact information for a scientist who has been dead for four years. Like BP, ConocoPhillips has ties to judges and other officials who have authority in responding to the Deepwater Horizon disaster and regulating offshore drilling.
In Alberta, Canada, ConocoPhillips is one of the major investors and operators in the Alberta tar sands, the largest industrial project on earth. Whether obtained through strip-mining or Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) methods, the extraction of tar sands in the Athabasca involves clearcutting ancient boreal forest and heavily contaminating waterways, leading to high levels of rare and deadly cancer, autoimmune disease and other illnesses in aboriginal communities downstream. ConocoPhillips plans to quadruple its tar sands production by 2015. Due to this strong interest, the Canadian branches of ConocoPhillips have worked against a low-carbon fuel standard in the U.S.
In Peru, ConocoPhillips is partnering with the London-based Perenco company to construct an oil pipeline (through the use of dynamite) that will supplement drilling exploration in the western Amazon. According to an Amazon Watch report, ConocoPhillips owns exploration rights in five land parcels that total 10.5 million acres in the ecologically sensitive Peruvian Amazon. Indigenous people who live in voluntary isolation are known to inhabit the region, but their presence is denied by the Peruvian government and Perenco. ConocoPhillips has taken advantage of this denial to move exploration forward.
Links and Resources
ConocoPhillips in the Peruvian Amazon- Amazon Watch Report
Political Economy Research Institute Toxic Release Inventory
Pick Your Poison- Sierra Club Ranking
from http://www.polluterwatch.com/conocophillips
company ConocoPhillips
position CEO and Chairman
bio
Jim Mulva has served as ConocoPhillips’ CEO since Phillips merged with Conoco in 2002. Mulva had previously worked for Phillips, starting in 1973 after serving in the U.S. Navy. Mulva obtained a M.A. in business administration finance in 1969 before entering the service.
In the last fiscal year, Mulva was compensated $11.16 million and holds over $170 million in his company’s stock. He has made over $95 million in the last five years.
Source: Forbes
Mulva also serves on the Board of Directors for General Electric, and from 2005-2006 was the Chairman of the American Petroleum Institute, a key opposition hub to clean energy and global warming legislation.
Evidence
Since Mulva became CEO, ConocoPhillips has spent over $1.2 million on political contributions.
While Mulva claims to support renewable energy, he asserts that such support is “not at the expense of fossil fuels.” Despite Mulva’s clear intent to take no part in reducing U.S. fossil fuel dependency, ConocoPhillips played a role in shaping U.S. climate and energy bills through their membership in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). Mulva claimed that the climate legislation did not include enough incentives for the oil industry. Behind the scenes, ConocoPhillips spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying to influence legislation against industry regulation and for favorable permits and subsidies for Mulva's business. Mulva pulled ConocoPhillips out of the USCAP after influencing House and Senate climate bills which were prevented from becoming law.
Mulva’s company holds major investments in operations controversial for their safety, their ecological impact, and their violation of human rights. These operations include offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling operations in Alaska, heavy involvement in the tar sands of Northern Alberta, and oil exploration in ecologically sensitive areas of the Peruvian Amazon, inhabited by isolated indigenous people whose presence ConocoPhillips denies.
Following the BP Deepwater Horizon well blowout, Mulva and the CEOs of the other four U.S. supermajor oil companies were summoned to testify before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. When examining the five corporations’ Gulf of Mexico regional oil spill response plans, Chairman Ed Markey demonstrated that all of the plans were almost. When questioned, Mulva agreed with Chairman Markey that it was “not appropriate” to mention walruses in a plan for a region they do not inhabit.
While Mulva has publicy stated that hydrofracking for shale gas is "often the low cost-source," one of ConocoPhillips' geologists has privately warned colleaguesthat industry's "unreasonable enamor" with shale gas could become "the world's largest uneconomic field."
Links and Resources
ConocoPhillips
Lobbying by related organizations:
eljcustomattribute83endeljcustomattribute84endeljcustomattribute85endclient profile: Summary, 2010">
A special interest's lobbying activity may go up or down over time, depending on how much attention the federal government is giving their issues. Particularly active clients often retain multiple lobbying firms, each with a team of lobbyists, to press their case for them.
Total Lobbying Expenditures: $19,626,382
Subtotal for Parent ConocoPhillips: $19,626,382
Subtotal for Subsidiary DCP Midstream: $0
ConocoPhillips Lobbying by Industry| Industry | Total |
| Oil & Gas | $19,626,382 |
Itemized Lobbying Expenses for ConocoPhillips| Firms Hired | Total Reported by Filer | Reported Contract Expenses (included in Total Reported by Filer) |
| ConocoPhillips | $19,626,382 | - |
|---|---|---|
| ConocoPhillips | - | $19,626,382 |
| BlueWater Strategies | - | $200,000 |
| $200,000 |
Lobbying Expenses Reported by Subsidiary DCP Midstream| Firms Hired | Total Reported by Filer | Reported Contract Expenses (included in Total Reported by Filer) |
| Brownstein, Hyatt et al |