Earthworks
=<div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx many</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmog.com/2014/11/06/bush-family-inner-circle-office-denton-texas-fracking-ban-lawsuits/">https://www.desmog.com/2014/11/06/bush-family-inner-circle-office-denton-texas-fracking-ban-lawsuits/</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bush Family and Its Inner Circle Play Central Role in Lawsuits Against Denton, Texas Fracking Ban</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BySteve Horn on<b> Nov 6, 2014</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On November 4, Denton, Texas, became the first city in the state to ban the process of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) when 59 percent of voters cast ballots in favor of the initiative.</span> It did so in the heart of the<b> Barnett Shale basin,</b> where George Mitchell — the “father of fracking” — drilled the first sample wells for his company Mitchell Energy.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As promised by the oil and gas industry and by Texas Railroad Commission commissioner David Porter, the vote was met with immediate legal backlash. Both the Texas General Land Office and the Texas Oil and Gas Association (TXOGA) filed lawsuits in Texas courts within roughly 12 hours of the vote taking place, the latest actions in the aggressive months-long campaign by the industry and the Texas state government to fend off the ban.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Land Office and TXOGA lawsuits, besides making similar legal arguments about state law preempting local law under the Texas Constitution, share something else in common: ties to former President George W. Bush and the Bush family at large.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the Land Office legal case, though current land commissioner Jerry Patterson signed off on the lawsuit, he will soon depart from office. And George Prescott Bush — son of former Florida Governor and prospective 2016 Republican Party presidential nominee Jeb Bush and nephew of former President George W. Bush — will take his place.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>George P. Bush won his land commissioner race in a landslide,</b> gaining 61 percent of the vote. Given the cumbersome and lengthy nature of litigation in the U.S., it appears the Land Office case will have only just begun by the time Bush assumes the office.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The TXOGA legal complaint was filed by a powerful team of attorneys working at the firm <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Baker Botts</span>, the international law firm named after the familial descendants of James A. Baker III, a partner at the firm.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Baker III served as chief-of-staff under both President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush, Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush and as a close advisor to President George W. Bush on the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He gave George P. Bush a $10,000 donation for his campaign for his race for land commissioner.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James A. Baker III Campaign Contribution George P. Bush]</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which exempts the oil and gas industry from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act for fracking, is seen by critics as the legacy of ashes left behind by the George W. Bush Administration.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet almost a decade later, the two lawsuits filed against Denton show the Bush oil and gas legacy clearly lives on and stretches from the state where the fracking industry was born all the way to Iraq and back again. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jeb and George P. Bush: Fracking Investors</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Besides sharing blood as father and son, Jeb Bush and George P. Bush also operate inside the world of fracking finance.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jeb works at the firm Britton Hill Holdings LLC, while George Prescott works at St. Augustine Capital Partners and served a short-lived stint on the board of directors of the Midland, Texas-based fracking exploration and production company, Arbella Exploration from February through September.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Its first investments have been tied to the exploitation of shale oil and gas in the U.S.,” explained an article in Bloomberg. “Britton Hill raised more than $40 million for its first fund in May 2013, according to a private placement notice filed with the SEC at the time.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Britton Hill has investments in a company fracking in the Marcellus Shale basin and another that owns a fleet of gas carriers seeking to export U.S. propane to Asia. Mitch Jones, common resources director for Food and Water Watch, wrote a blog post critical of Jeb Bush and Britton Hill the day the Bloomberg article came out.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These relationships, where politicians move between Washington and Wall Street, between government and finance and resource exploitation, is another reason why we need to get money out of politics,” wrote Jones. “It’s these sorts of relationships that corrupt our system and provide the permanent political-business elite with their hold on our government.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The critique promulgated by Jones about Jeb Bush could just as easily apply to his son, who recently said his father is “more than likely” to run for president in 2016.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>According to multiple press accounts and an independent DeSmogBlog review of Texas campaign finance data, George P. Bush took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry in his land commissioner electoral race</b>. He also received the endorsement of the Texas Oil and Gas Association’s political action committee, the plaintiff for the other lawsuit.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“George P. Bush fully appreciates the role a strong domestic energy industry plays in ensuring our state and our nation’s prosperity and security,” Robert L. Looney, president of the Texas Oil and Gas PAC stated in endorsing him. “Mr. Bush is committed to advancing public policy that ensures Texas oil and gas producers can power our state forward and create good-paying jobs.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like Britton Hill Holdings, St. Augustine Capital Partners also invests in fracking, according to its website. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“St. Augustine has participated in partnerships with seasoned operators to develop drilling programs in the Marcellus and Permian Basins, in addition to offering financial advisory services for those opportunities,” St. Augustine explains.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“St. Augustine provides business development for dynamic middle-market service companies ranging from liquid storage construction to logistical operations,” the firm further details. “Additionally, St. Augustine has participated as a general partner for numerous oil and gas exploration and production related projects in a variety of geological formations.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The firm also “has worked closely with” the Texas Railroad Commission</b>, according to its website.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the months leading up to the Denton vote, the Railroad Commission situated itself as the industry’s go-to spin machine in the attempt to discredit activists fighting for a fracking ban. Railroad commissioner David Porter, who formerly worked as an oil and gas industry accountant, was also one of the first entities out of the block to say an affirmative ban vote in Denton would receive ruthless contestation by the Texas government.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Serving as land commissioner in Texas is often a resume padder before running for governor, an article about George P. Bush published in GreenWire explained.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“[The] Texas land commissioner [is] a powerful post that controls the state’s oil and gas contracts,” the article explains. “Every land commissioner in the past three decades has gone on to run for lieutenant governor or governor.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Baker Botts: From Texas to Iraq and Back</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>One of the co-counsel for Baker Botts in its lawsuit against the City of Denton is Evan Young, part of a powerful legal cadre that includes former Texas Supreme Court Justice Thomas Phillip</b>s. Phillips testified in front of the Denton City Council in July in opposition to the Denton fracking ban proposal on behalf of TXOGA.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Phillips also concurrently works on the legal defense team for former Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry — 2012 Republican Party presidential nominee and former chair of the powerful Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission — who faces state-level felony charges in Travis County for abuse of power. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to his Baker Botts biography, Young formerly clerked for the conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and worked as legal counsel in the Office of the Attorney General under Attorneys General Alberto R. Gonzales and Michael B. Mukasey from 2006 through the end of the presidency of George W. Bush.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“While on the Attorney General’s staff, he accepted a detail to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq,” explains his Baker Botts biographical sketch, “where he was the Deputy Rule of Law Coordinator. In that position he worked to assist the Iraqi government in its efforts to strengthen its legal regime.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the legal regimes Baker Botts helped create while Young was still working for the U.S. Department of Justice was one helping oil flow out of the ground in occupied Iraq and into the U.S. As of 2012, the U.S. is one of the world’s biggest importers of Iraqi crude, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA).</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Table Credit: U.S. Energy Information Agency</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>An article published by American Lawyer in 2007 explains that Baker Botts helped cut a controversial legal deal between Hunt Oil and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG)</b>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That deal gave Hunt the right to explore oil in Kurdistan, the first U.S. company given the green light to do so. The Iraqi Constitution that the U.S. helped write says making such a move is illegal. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Not only was the deal made in a war zone, but Iraq is still working on oil resources legislation,” wrote American Lawyer. “Under the October 2005 Iraqi Constitution, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">local oil is owned by ‘the Iraqi people.’ “</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Ray Hunt, CEO of Hunt Oil Company, gave George P. Bush $25,000 for his campaign according to Texas campaign finance data. And the Baker Botts Amicus Fund gave him $2,000 worth of donations, with Young and Phillips each donating $500 to get George P. Bush elected.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ray Hunt Hunt Oil Campaign Contribution George P. Bush</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Image Credit: Texas Ethics Commission </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In late July, Iraq’s Oil Ministry launched a lawsuit against the Kurdish Regional Government in a U.S. District Court in Houston for what it says is a million barrels of illegally stolen oil exported out of Kurdistan — which is still sitting on a tanker called the United Kalyvryta 60 miles off the coast of Texas in Galveston Bay.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Oil Ministry pointed to the Iraqi Constitution in its lawsuit as the legal precedent.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In March 2014, just months before the Iraqi government brought the lawsuit, Baker Botts published a legal memo on the legal and geopolitical ramifications of Kurdish oil exports.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Constitutional, “Big Government” Double Standards?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though Baker Botts cited the Texas Constitution in its lawsuit against the City of Denton, the Iraqi Constitution was disposable for the firm and its client Hunt Oil when it came to procuring oil exploration and exportation rights in Kurdistan. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Baker Botts’ counsel also seems to have brushed aside concerns by both the U.S. and Iraqi government that the extra legal maneuvering for oil exploration and production rights in the area would create regional instability, the blowback of which is now visible in the form of the ascendant and lethal Islamic State.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Further, Sharon Wilson, an organizer for<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Earthworks — an environmental group that campaigned for the fracking ban in Denton</span> — pointed to a quote from George P. Bush back in October. “Enough…big government solutions to our problems,” George P. Bush said at an October event his father Jeb Bush also spoke at</b>. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Denton residents, not politicians, directly spoke in overwhelming numbers that they don’t want fracking in their city,” Wilson told DeSmogBlog. “Overturning the will of the people by government fiat is the very definition of big government. George P. is going to have to put his money where his mouth is or decide if his mouth is where his money comes from.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bush Family and Its Inner Circle Play Central Role in Lawsuits Against Denton, Texas Fracking Ban</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steve Horn is a former Research Fellow and writer for DeSmog and a freelance investigative journalist based in San Diego, CA. He currently works as a climate reporter and producer for The Real News Network.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div>
</div><div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://exxonknews.substack.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://exxonknews.substack.com/ </a> on substack/twt</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div>Exxon’s new emissions targets are more smoke and mirrors</div><div>Earthworks campaigner Josh Eisenfeld discusses the company’s latest pledge.</div><div>EXXONKNEWS</div><div>Dec 8, 2021</div><div>
</div><div>Emily Sanders is editorial lead for the Center for Climate Integrity. You can catch up with her on Twitter here.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Last week, oil giant ExxonMobil announced a new emissions reduction pledge — its latest attempt to placate growing calls to hold the company accountable for its immense contributions to the climate crisis. </b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The new targets are technically Exxon’s most ambitious to date — a comically low bar, if you take a closer look at the details. </b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Exxon is now aiming to reduce its 2016-level greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2030 — a goal that relies on “measuring the intensity of its emissions,” which could leave room for an overall increase in pollution if the company’s oil production increases. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The pledge also takes into account pollution from only its operations, otherwise known as Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which comprise an estimated 17% of Exxon’s total 2020 emissions. The other 83% — the Scope 3 emissions released when consumers use the industry’s fossil fuel products — are completely unaccounted for in Exxon’s announcement.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Jamie Henn </div><div>@jamieclimate</div><div>
</div><div>This is like PhilipMorris pledging that the production of their cigarettes won’t cause cancer. </div><div>
</div><div>Offsetting a drilling operation does absolutely nothing for the climate when you’re still selling the gas. </div><div>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?</div><div>bloom.bg</div><div>December 7th 2021</div><div>
</div><div>13 Retweets34 Likes</div><div>Once again, Exxon is shifting responsibility for addressing climate change to consumers — even as the company continues to lobby against alternatives to fossil fuels, greenwash their dangerous products, and refuse to significantly change their business model to respond to the crisis.</div><div>
</div><div>Twitter avatar for @jeffbradynews</div><div>Jeff Brady </div><div>@jeffbradynews</div><div>This announcement does not include emissions from the oil and gas the company produces. ExxonMobil leaves responsibility for limiting those climate-warming gases to its customers. </div><div>ExxonMobil @exxonmobil</div><div>
</div><div>Today we announced one of the most ambitious emission-reduction plans in the Permian Basin: net-zero Scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. It’s a big step, as the Permian is home to over 40% of our net U.S. oil and gas production. Learn more. https://t.co/T7WKspJGbG https://t.co/nA4JA4jK5m</div><div>December 6th 2021</div><div>
</div><div><b>I spoke with Josh Eisenfeld, Corporate Accountability Communications Campaigner at the nonprofit Earthworks, for his take on Exxon’s latest greenwashing. Our interview, edited for length and clarity, is below.</b></div><div>
</div><div>EK: Exxon’s latest targets rely on <b>emissions intensity metrics</b>. Can you explain what that means?</div><div>
</div><div>JE: <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Reducing carbon emissions intensity doesn't mean reducing total carbon emissions.</span> <b>It means reducing the emissions associated with getting a barrel of oil to market</b>. So things like leaking less of their product out or switching from diesel engines to pump oil out of the ground to solar powered engines. If they reduce that intensity metric while increasing their total production of oil and natural gas — which Exxon has indicated they plan to do — they will still increase their overall carbon footprint. We have seen other companies, like Chevron, do exactly that. Between 2016 and 2020 they reduced all of their intensity metrics and still drastically increased their overall carbon emissions because they increased their drilling and production.</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon is also promoting a heavy reliance on unproven technology like carbon capture and storage. This allows them to continue to produce fossil fuels under the guise of “we’ll be able to take the carbon out of the atmosphere, so you don’t have to worry.” It’s 100% designed to make the company look good while continuing their bad behavior.</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon has known about climate change for half a century. I think this is just more of the same. They denied climate change. Now they’re delaying climate action, and this is just another example of that.</div><div>
</div><div><b>How has Exxon performed on previous pledges? </b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The data that we’re going off of is the data they’re providing us. There’s no watchdog checking to make sure that their numbers are correct. There is no standardized reporting in the United States. Until we open up the data to be more transparent, there’s no way for any person to know for sure whether they’re hitting these goals.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The numbers they do account for, like methane numbers, are extremely underreported. What they say is coming out of their oil and gas wells is far, far lower than what is actually coming out based on satellite imagery and scientific studies. When you factor that in too, it’s really hard to know whether any company has hit their mark. </span></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>What’s the difference between a pledge and a commitment?</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>All of these terms mean whatever the industry says they want it to mean. </b>There’s nothing that binds them by law to define or deliver on their promises. It’s one reason a lot of NGOs and activists are pushing on the FTC to create reporting protocols. History shows us that when there is obscurity in rules, companies take advantage of that. That's what’s happening right now.</div><div>
</div><div><b>These pledges come about a month after ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods faced questions before Congress about the company’s efforts to spread climate disinformation. Exxon also faces lawsuits from communities across the country seeking to hold it accountable for those lies. </b></div><div>
</div><div>What do you say to the idea that this pledge demonstrates that the company is at least taking steps in the right direction?</div><div>
</div><div>History tells us that the words that come out of the mouth of the CEO of ExxonMobil are not gonna be the truth. They come with an asterisk: these words are designed to increase Exxon’s profits, and that’s it. What they do is all that should matter. It is good that communities are stepping in and fighting back, but ultimately I don't think it’s reasonable to expect a company like ExxonMobil to just fold over and succumb to that pressure. It’s going to take a reigning in of the industry as a whole by government, geopolitical forces, and investors pulling their money out. </div><div>
</div><div>These pledges are doing a lot of things for the industry, and that’s why they continue to put them out. They’re fighting a battle for their social license to operate, and they’ve been losing ground. These pledges are a way to remedy that — for their consumers, for politicians who have to answer to their constituencies when they hand out more tax breaks to fossil fuel companies, and for investors who have to justify their complicity in this. It gives them the disguise of change without any pressure to actually act on that change. As we’ve seen, even the investor pressure applied from Engine No. 1 hasn’t really amounted to any real change in Exxon.</div><div>
</div><div><b>This is the first pledge that’s come out since activist hedge fund Engine No. 1 members, who intended to push Exxon to significantly reduce its emissions, were elected. Why hasn’t there been more change?</b></div><div>
</div><div>Two reasons: they only got three board members, and that’s not a majority. These three are gonna come in with an image that others are probably not going to be too warm to in the boardroom. They’re going to have a tough time explaining why doing the right thing is doing the right thing financially. The idea of being able to change a company from within has good intentions, but I don’t see it playing out in a way under the given rules that actually makes change happen fast enough. </div><div>
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