suncor
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MERRI OK
SEE CLIMATE LAWSUITS BOULDER COLO
SEE TAR SANDS
ACTIV SUPPRESS?
SEE SUNOCO
stratfor pitch ppt ~ greenpeace
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AN PP 4 26
Across the country, Republican-led state legislatures are passing a slate of laws that effectively shield oil and gas companies from legal claims that they are responsible for the destruction and mounting toll caused by climate change. Fifteen laws have either been passed or are currently being debated in 11 states. Together, they threaten to remove long-standing tools for the public to hold corporations accountable.
A ProPublica investigation has found that most of these bills are part of a coordinated effort, orchestrated by a constellation of groups that share staff or have funding ties to the prominent conservative activist Leonard Leo, who is credited with placing conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. These groups have drafted state legislation, planned its dissemination and engaged a well-connected lobbying firm to get them signed into law.
The effort is unfolding as courts are weighing more than 30 significant lawsuits by states, counties and municipalities accusing fossil fuel companies of misrepresenting the risks their products posed to consumers and seeking to recoup the costs of disasters and other climate impacts like wildfire losses or coastal flooding that their products helped cause. A goal of the legislation is to block these cases from going forward and prevent new ones from being filed.
The strategy to establish state laws that will make it all but impossible to sue oil and gas companies was laid out in detail by a group of lobbyists and political operatives in December, during a panel presentation at the annual States and Nation Policy Summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council — the influential organization that brings together state lawmakers, corporate leaders and conservative activists to draft and promote legislation.
During the session, one of the panelists, Will Hild, the executive director of a nonprofit called Consumers’ Research, described the climate cases as a liberal effort to use the judicial system to exact a new tax on energy companies in the form of civil judgments. Another panelist, Oramel H. Skinner, the former solicitor general for Arizona and the executive director of the nonprofit Alliance for Consumers, warned that those judgments will trickle down to make citizens’ lives less affordable and ultimately make many of their choices — whether to own pickup trucks or purchase a side of beef — illegal.
ProPublica reviewed an audio recording of the event obtained by the nonpartisan watchdog group Documented.
Hild and Skinner had come to the session with a ready-made fix: a set of pre-written bills and plenty of funding.
Consumers’ Research and the Alliance for Consumers are both funded by organizations connected to Leo. ProPublica examined lobbying records across 25 states, federal tax disclosures for more than a dozen organizations and notes from other closed-door strategy sessions among ALEC members and found that several Leo-supported groups are part of a national strategy to give legal immunity to companies for their climate emissions.
Since 2021, Leo has been deploying a $1.6 billion gift through a series of nonprofits and other organizations that obscure the source and the recipients of donations — so-called dark money groups. Much of that money has been routed through a nonprofit judicial advocacy group Leo founded — now called The 85 Fund — which both receives and disseminates Leo’s funding. Many of these nonprofits are increasingly focused on issues related to climate change.
The panel session’s moderator, Michael Thompson, is a senior vice president at CRC Advisors, Leo’s for-profit Virginia-based political and corporate consulting firm. He also sits on ALEC’s Private Enterprise Advisory Council. Hild’s organization, Consumers’ Research, received more than 65% of its funding in 2024 through a dark money group called Donors Trust. The 85 Fund contributed more than $67 million to Donors Trust in 2024. Consumers’ Research also works closely with — and contracted more than $670,000 of work in 2024 to — CRC Advisors. Another panelist, Paul N. Watkins, was a legal fellow at Consumers’ Research. According to tax filings, his law firm received more than $2.2 million in 2024 from the group. As recently as 2024, Skinner was also counsel for Leo’s 85 Fund, according to the nonprofit’s tax filings.
= POWELL MEMO BS
“For decades, the left has leveraged immense resources to capture the institutions that shape our society — the legal system, universities, medical and scientific bodies, the entertainment industry, and our biggest corporations,” Leo wrote to ProPublica in a text message. “That takeover resulted in a radically woke culture that does not reflect the will of the American people, or the pillars of limited constitutional government that made our country great. That is why our enterprise supports organizations that are committed to crushing liberal dominance and restoring balance in the institutions that shape society.”
At the ALEC session, Skinner presented a model bill that would effectively bar cities and towns from bringing public nuisance lawsuits against corporations and others when the issue is a broad public harm like climate change. In several cases, plaintiffs have argued that the impacts of climate change — the buckling of a road from extreme swings in temperature, for example — are a “nuisance” caused by fossil fuel companies.
Nuisance claims are common in the American legal system, giving individuals, companies or communities a way to sue when someone else’s actions damage their property, degrade the health or safety of the environment around them or interfere with their rights. Under these laws, parties can ask for financial compensation or seek court orders to remedy problems, such as pollution. Skinner, however, argues that nuisance laws should only be used to address local, easily fixable problems, like excessive noise from a bar. His bill would curtail the use of public nuisance suits in climate cases by limiting liability for manufacturers and other businesses and giving state attorneys general the sole authority to bring them.
“Think really hard about every lever you have in your states to shut off the ability for this woke lawfare machine to churn,” Skinner told the audience. “The left’s goal is to reshape society around you using the courtroom.”
The second draft law, called the Energy Freedom Act, was produced by the policy nonprofit associated with Hild’s organization. It would, among many provisions, shield businesses from liability related to emissions of greenhouse gases if those releases did not violate the federal Clean Air Act.
Critics of the bills say they subvert the rights of local communities. They send the message that “you can pollute with impunity,” said Carly Phillips, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s really a thumb in the eye of places that are affected by climate change.”
The push to block climate suits across the states comes as several of the cases against the oil industry approach, or have already entered, the perilous legal phases of discovery, when plaintiffs will have the opportunity to seek confidential industry documents and depose oil executives. The stakes for oil companies are enormous. By some estimates more than $10 trillion in damages can be attributed to U.S. emissions.
:{:{There’s a reason why state and local governments have increasingly brought these suits. The frequency and cost of climate-influenced disasters, including severe storms, drought and flooding, continues to mount — between $350 billion and $450 billion in each of the last three years — stretching government budgets.}:
Significantly, the science that makes it possible to attribute how much any one disaster was influenced by climate change has steadily advanced. To cite one example, the March heat waves across the U.S. would have been virtually impossible without the emissions that have caused climate change, according to the European science group World Weather Attribution, and were about four times as likely to happen as they were a decade ago.}:
Boulder, Colorado, is among the places facing increasing droughts, more extreme precipitation and larger wildfires — all of which are significantly propelled by climate change linked to the emissions from the use of fossil fuels. The state has estimated the costs of these perils will run into the many hundreds of millions of dollars. In 2018, Boulder County sued Exxon Mobil and the Canadian oil company Suncor Energy, accusing the companies of “intentional, reckless and negligent conduct.”
Among its claims, the county alleged the oil companies engaged in a conspiracy to mislead the public and violated consumer protection rules by mischaracterizing the dangers of their products. They accused the oil companies of creating a public nuisance by altering the environment and leaving the county to pay to abate growing hazards such as the flooding that tests roads and bridges. Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy have never filed a response in Colorado but asked for the case to be dismissed.
Ever since, the lawsuit has been mired in a dispute over whether Colorado courts were the correct venue, with the state Supreme Court ultimately ruling last May that they were. Suncor filed to the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider, and this fall it will weigh the company’s petition asking whether federal environmental law preempts the state law.
:{:{The high-profile national court case is just one facet in an increasingly tense fight over liability for the fossil fuel industry. In January, the American Petroleum Institute, the largest fossil fuel industry group in the United States, said fighting the climate liability lawsuits was one of its top priorities in 2026. Lobbying records for the group from last year show that it advocated for legislation to protect oil producers from climate lawsuits at the state level. }:
The Trump administration; other industry groups, including the Chamber of Commerce; and several of the nonprofit advocacy groups associated with Leo have argued that state courts are the wrong venue for claims that ultimately concern emissions that drift widely across borders, and they wish to see other cases moved or dismissed. They say that because the federal government already has the authority to regulate those emissions, the federal courts, not the states, should hear the claims.}:
In an interview, Hild told ProPublica that he sees the suits as an illegitimate effort to enact policy through the courts and to “regulate the entire U.S. economy from a single state.”
In an email, Skinner wrote: “Our effort is not one focused on climate change. But it is true that left-wing activists and their dark money donors have put vast sums of money and years of groundwork into pushing a coast-to-coast campaign of climate-focused public nuisance lawsuits.”
Neither Watkins nor Thompson responded to requests for comment.
When Skinner and Hild finished their presentation at ALEC they made a QR code available to download the language of the model bills and directed the audience to a woman named Catherine Gunsalus, who was in the back of the room. She would be able to answer any questions, they said.
Gunsalus until recently worked for the Heritage Action Fund, the political and lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, the Trump-aligned think tank that is most recently known for promoting the Project 2025 agenda. Records show that Gunsalus has also lobbied in collaboration with another Leo-affiliated group, Americans for Public Trust.
In April 2025, she formed a lobbying firm called Varidon Strategies and began registering in states almost immediately afterward, according to records. By mid-summer, Varidon was representing Alliance for Consumers Action Fund; Consumers’ Research; The Honest Election Project, an affiliate of The 85 Fund; as well as other Leo entities in 25 states. In the majority of those filings, Varidon used an email address at the domain of Holtzman Vogel, a Virginia-based law firm that is often retained by Leo’s organizations.
Gunsalus did not reply to a detailed list of questions.
In the four months since the ALEC summit, there has been substantial activity in the states where Varidon has registered. On Jan. 5, representatives in Missouri introduced the loosely related Eliminate Criminal Profiteering Act, which could stop revenues flowing to law firms from settlements in the sort of nuisance suits often used in climate cases. Two days later, legislators took up the Public Nuisance Reform Act, which proposes narrowing the definition of what could be considered a nuisance.
That same month, similar bills were introduced in Indiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee. In February, eight more followed in Oklahoma, Iowa, South Carolina, Utah, Louisiana and Kansas. Skinner, who is registered to lobby in Kansas, was invited to testify in a hearing about that state’s bill and launched a new “End the Lawfare” website targeting the “left-wing” agenda. As of April 2, versions of the model legislation offered at the ALEC meeting have been introduced across 11 states altogether. In Utah, the governor has signed two related bills into law, and in Tennessee and Indiana, bills are awaiting their governors’ signature.
The more states there are with some sort of waiver in place, the narrower the pathway for cities and states to seek redress as environmental conditions worsen, and the costs continue to rise. Hild and Skinner and the Leo network’s bills also serve another purpose: teeing up a conflict that pits states against one another, a conflict that only the Supreme Court or Congress can finally resolve.
As Hild put it at the ALEC gathering, “This is economic civil war.”
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https://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/press-release/24286/climate-disasters-brought-to-you-by-shell-bp-exxon-and-suncor/
Climate Disasters brought to you by Shell, BP, Exxon, and Suncor’
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west va
- By Alex Brown Stateline.org (TNS)
- Apr 17, 2022
https://www.register-herald.com/news/some-cities-states-say-big-oil-should-pay-for-climate-damage
in the waning days of 2021, a grass fire broke out in Boulder County, Colorado. Fueled by extreme drought and high winds, the fire swept through the communities of Superior and Louisville. Within hours, it had destroyed more than a thousand structures — making the Marshall fire the most destructive in the state’s history. The December fire was an extraordinary event, but perhaps a preview of the new normal under the conditions caused by climate change.
Late last month, another fire forced the evacuation of 18,000 residents in and around Boulder. Fortunate winds saved the city from catastrophic damage, but the near-miss — and the timing well outside of the region’s traditional fire season — was a warning sign of what’s to come. “We've already experienced impacts (from climate change), but nowhere near the amount that we're likely to experience in the coming decades,” said Aaron Brockett, Boulder’s mayor. “We have a lot of work to do to make our community more resilient.” Boulder leaders are working to reduce fuel loads in the forests and open spaces owned by the city. They’re seeking to make the neighborhoods bordering those lands more fire resilient. They’re hoping to upgrade fire stations and equipment. And they’re planning projects to reduce flood risk from the severe storms that climate change is likely to bring. That work will cost tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. And local leaders think oil companies should pay for it. In February, the city and county of Boulder, along with San Miguel County in western Colorado, scored a significant win in their legal fight against Exxon Mobil and Suncor energy companies when a federal appeals court ruled that the case would remain in state court. Local governments earned another win last week when a different federal appeals court ruled that Baltimore’s case against oil companies also belonged in state court.
The decisions were the first under new U.S. Supreme Court guidelines, established last May as part of Baltimore’s climate lawsuit, directing appeals courts to take a more expansive look at oil companies’ arguments that the cases belong in federal court. The rulings have been closely watched by the nearly two dozen states, cities and counties that have filed lawsuits likewise seeking payment from fossil fuel companies for the damages caused by climate change. Oil companies, with the backing of some other states, have fought to move the cases to federal court, where they think national regulations around drilling, refining, emissions and air quality would invalidate the legal claims against them. The local governments that have sued say their cases rest on Big Oil’s deception about the harm its products would cause, giving them a foothold under state law to seek damages.
The jurisdictional battle, which more federal appeals courts are likely to rule on this year, will have massive implications for whether the climate lawsuits proceed to local jury trials. If they do, it would set up a high-stakes showdown over the still uncertain territory of legal accountability for climate change — with billions of dollars on the line. Several states and industry groups have weighed in to support the oil companies, arguing that rulings against them could devastate the industry and make energy more expensive. “If it’s in federal court, (the oil companies) win,” said Hannah Wiseman, a professor of law at Penn State University’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. “These cities are wise to the precedent, and they’ve made clear they’re raising issues of state tort law and not arguing for federal climate policy. They're doing a good job of that, and it’s hard to predict how the courts will ultimately come out.”
The governments suing the oil industry come from regions facing sea level rise, wildfires, drought, flooding and severe weather. They cite extensive news reporting — including investigations from the Los Angeles Times, Inside Climate News and The Guardian — that shows oil companies understood the dangers of climate change decades ago but led campaigns to undermine the scientific consensus that their products were contributing to a growing crisis. “By the ‘70s, (oil companies) knew that a lack of action on moving away from fossil fuels would cause dramatic changes to the climate,” Brockett said. “Meanwhile, the burden for repairing the damage falls on local communities, and we don't have the financial wherewithal to bear that burden.” Backers of the lawsuits compare them to landmark cases against tobacco and opioid manufacturers, which resulted in multibillion-dollar settlements over the public health crises fueled by their products and business practices.
“They're just saying, ‘You violated state law, because you deceived us about what you knew about your products in order to sell more of them,’” said Bob Percival, director of the University of Maryland’s environmental law program. “The oil companies are desperate to avoid a public trial that would focus attention on what they knew, when they knew it and how they tried to deceive the public.” The cases mark an unprecedented attempt to assert legal accountability for climate change, a crisis with worldwide causes and consequences.
“The fact that it's a global phenomenon is obviously the thing that distinguishes these tort actions from any case we've seen before,” said Pat Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School, who also serves in an informal advisory group that supports some of the governments’ cases. The oil companies named in the cases argue that federal energy and pollution policies should preempt state claims. Exxon Mobil and Suncor have contended in court filings in the Colorado lawsuit that they followed federal regulations on drilling, refining and distributing fossil fuels.
The companies also assert that the lawsuits are backdoor attempts to establish climate policy through the courts, since Congress has failed to take meaningful action. "On jurisdictional matters, climate change is a national issue that requires a federal solution, not a patchwork of various state-based rulings," saidWilliam Allison, spokesperson for Energy In Depth, a research and public outreach project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a trade group.
Major companies facing the lawsuits — BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Suncor, the American Petroleum Institute,Koch Industries and Shell — did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment. Supporters of the lawsuits say the cases aren’t about enforcing or enacting policies to reduce carbon emissions, but rather about seeking accountability for what they say are decades of dishonesty that contributed to political inaction on climate change. Many of the cases have been through years of legal wrangling, and the current battle centers on whether they should be heard in state or federal court. Those backing the lawsuits say local juries should hear the cases. “These cases, which are fundamentally about local injuries to communities, should be heard in state court,” said Marco Simons, general counsel with EarthRights International, which is representing the Colorado communities. “Our cases are not about stopping climate change writ large or broader policy issues. They're about paying for damages suffered by these communities.” But some states have weighed in to argue that the cases belong in federal court. For example, Indiana has filed multiple amicus briefs in favor of oil companies, including a recent filing with 13 states in the case brought by Baltimore.
“These claims are displaced by the existing federal regulatory scheme, which tells us the limits in advance on extraction, refinement and use of fossil fuels,” Tom Fisher, Indiana’s solicitor general, said in an interview. “If a court in California decides that Exxon and Chevron are responsible under public nuisance theory for causing global climate change and that requires an injunction to limit their output, that's obviously going to affect Indiana and other states.” Some business groups, including the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, an arm of the National Association of Manufacturers that fights climate litigation, also have urged federal courts to take jurisdiction. “(C)limate policy is federal and regulatory in nature — not one that can be decided by state courts,” Phil Goldberg, the project’s special counsel, wrote in an email to Stateline. The National League of Cities, which advocates for municipal governments, takes a different view. “This is really about federalism principles and where cases should be heard if there's a local harm,” said Carolyn Berndt, the group’s legislative director for sustainability.
“The local harm in this case happens to be climate change, and the right court for this is state court.” Although federal judges mostly have ruled that the cases belong in state court, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last May forced federal appeals courts to reevaluate those decisions because they hadn’t considered all the energy companies’ arguments. This February, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the case filed by the Colorado municipalities would remain in state court, the first decision under the new Supreme Court guidelines. Last week, the 4th Circuit ruled that Baltimore’s case against oil companies also belonged in state court. Several other circuit courts have yet to rule under the new guidelines.
“This is an important year,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, a nonprofit that supports communities that are taking on oil companies. “If these cases end up in state court, that’s a really good sign. If one of the circuits goes (the oil companies’) way, that could create grounds for an appeal to the Supreme Court.” While several federal appeals court decisions await, some cases are moving ahead. Last month, a Hawaii Circuit Court judge ruled that a lawsuit filed by Honolulu could proceed to trial even as the jurisdictional issues are still being settled. The case could be the first to reach the discovery phase, an outcome advocates say energy companies have fought tooth-and-nail to avoid. “They absolutely do not want it to get that far,” said Tommy Waters, chair of the Honolulu City Council.
“What are they hiding?” Waters said Honolulu is facing billions in damages from sea level rise alone, and it also requires expensive upgrades to its stormwater infrastructure to handle extreme precipitation. “Our roads are falling into the ocean, homes are falling into the ocean, our beaches are disappearing,” he said. “We simply can’t afford it.” Another case, filed by the state of Massachusetts against Exxon Mobil, also is moving toward discovery. That lawsuit, like most of the cases brought by state attorneys general, focuses on consumer fraud violations. Such lawsuits seek civil penalties, rather than restitution for the costs of climate mitigation. If the local governments prove their cases against the oil companies, the implications would be massive. Courts may have to determine the extent to which a given company is responsible for the climate damages in a particular region. “Science has made great strides in being able to attribute what percentage of temperature rise and what impacts are associated with a particular company's emissions,” said Percival, the University of Maryland professor. “There are now some really distinguished experts who can testify about how to apportion the harm.”
And if some cities and counties are successful, advocates expect a deluge of others to file suits. “If these cases are ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, then every city in the country could follow suit,” said Wiles of the Center for Climate Integrity. “There isn't a city budget out there that couldn't use help from the oil companies for their climate-driven adaptation costs.” Backers of the lawsuits acknowledge that the costs of dealing with climate change nationwide are far more than the oil companies could bear. “If these cases all go to their logical extreme, [the oil companies] all go bankrupt,” said Parenteau, the Vermont Law School professor. “They should.” Others argue that outcome is why the cases should be dropped. “We choose to use energy, which is mostly fossil fuel, because it makes our lives better,” said Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank that advocates for free market principles and is supported in part by oil industry-affiliated groups. “Imagine they win $100 billion in one of the suits. That becomes a per-barrel tax that gets passed on to consumers.”
2022 The Pew Charitable Trusts. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LL
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intercept parrish
A Radically New Landscape
Just as Standing Rock shifted public understanding of the extremes to which governments would go to support fossil fuel companies, so has the Trans Mountain fight.
Clayton Thomas-Muller, who works with the climate justice organization 350, has been involved in fighting the tar sands for over a decade. “We’re in a radically new landscape, with an entirely new campaign that needs to emerge. The federal government of Canada has demonstrated just complete hypocrisy in the purchase of this pipeline using public funds,” he said. “To paraphrase Vice President Bob Chamberlain of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs … a foreign oil corporation based in Houston gave the sovereign nation of Canada an ultimatum, and Canada buckled.”
So far, one of the largest producers in the Alberta tar sands region,Suncor, has shrugged at Trudeau’s multibillion-dollar gamble, pointing out that the “normal processes didn’t work very well.” The company has declined to commit to any new investments.
The Canadian government is hoping to find another buyer for the pipeline before its deal with Kinder Morgan is finalized at the end of July. The government has sweetened the deal by offering to indemnify any buyer against losses caused by construction delays and guarantee a rate of return if the project’s future owner is unable to complete construction because of legal decisions. Still, it’s unclear that they’ll be successful in selling it until after the pipeline is built.
If they don’t, then the Standing Rock of the north will be a battle where the line between the interests of the police and the pipeline owner will be virtually indistinguishable.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/suncor-sues-greenpeace-over-protest-1.809226
2009
Suncor sues Greenpeace over protest
Social Sharing
CBC News · Posted: Oct 14, 2009 12:35 PM MT | Last Updated: October 14, 2009
Suncor Energy has filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace in an effort to recover $1.5 million it says it lost in oil production during a protest on Sept. 30.
The Calgary-based energy giant has also filed an injunction to bar Greenpeace activists from its oilsands property, said Sneh Seetal, a spokesperson for Suncor.
"We have a responsibility to uphold safety, and the activists went on our site as uninvited guests, posed not only a safety risk to themselves, but also to our employees and contractors on our site," Seetal said Wednesday.
[ unidentified protester sits on a conveyer belt in this image from Greenpeace's live video stream of its protest at Suncor's mine in northern Alberta. (Greenpeace)]
Twenty-one Greenpeace activists were arrested and charged with mischief to property worth over $5,000 after stopping two Suncor conveyer belts that carry oilsands material to a nearby upgrader, as part of a blockade at the company's open-pit mine near Fort McMurray, Alta., two weeks ago.
The activists next court appearance is in Fort McMurray on Nov. 4.
Edmonton Greenpeace activist Mike Hudema said he expects the lawsuit will be dropped, based on discussions he has had with the organization's lawyer.
The blockade at Suncor was the second protest mounted by Greenpeace against the Alberta oilsands within one month.
On Sept. 15, protesters chained themselves to two massive oilsands trucks after sneaking onto Shell Canada's Ablian Sands mine, an action timed to coincide with a meeting the following day in Washington between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama.
That protest ended peacefully the next day after Shell and the RCMP agreed to let the protesters leave without being charged.
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intercept
https://theintercept.com/2019/12/13/youth-climate-movement-fossil-fuel-industry/
no lnx
HOW THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY IS ATTEMPTING TO BUY THE GLOBAL YOUTH CLIMATE MOVEMENT
Alleen Brown
December 13 2019, 9:30 a.m.
THE SAME DAY that 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg gave a stirring speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in September, in which she criticized delegates for “stealing my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” the architects of the climate crisis welcomed select youth participants from the summit to dine.
CEOs from fossil fuel corporations including BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Norway’s Equinor were attending the annual gathering of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative in New York, which includes industry leaders who claim to be committed to taking “practical” action on climate change. On the agenda for lunch was to “explore options for long-term engagement” with young people the industry could trust. Student Energy, a nonprofit based in Alberta, near Canada’s tar sands region, helped organize the event, which included time for students to grill the CEOs about their inaction on climate change.
Tension in the room was high, Student Energy’s executive director, 30-year-old Meredith Adler, told The Intercept. “The whole discussion started off with one of our participants talking about why youth don’t trust oil and gas companies,” she said. But by the end of the meeting, Adler tweeted that she was “very impressed” with OGCI. “I don’t feel they had all the answers or strong enough answers but they are really listening,” she wrote.
The students’ questions may have been tough, but the event was great PR for the fossil fuel industry.Gone are the days when CEOs openly questioned the existence of climate change. Today, industry leaders are feigning a sense of climate urgency while pushing forward proposals for climate action that will allow companies to keep harvesting carbon-emitting products well into the future. Subjecting themselves to a cohort of skeptical students was an opportunity for oil and gas executives to boost their credibility in an era when many young activists will only engage with them with picket signs.
Young activists say they’re seeing more of this “youth-washing” as the global youth climate movement gains momentum, including at the U.N. annual climate conference, known as COP 25, which is wrapping up in Madrid this week. With “youth” becoming synonymous with climate action, corporations and politicians are increasingly using young people to portray themselves as climate serious.
“There’s a real dangerous tokenism of youth for the benefit of public image.”
“The use of youth in campaigning is becoming more and more overt,” said 24-year-old Eilidh Robb, a member of the U.K. Youth Climate Coalition, who has been involved in pushing the U.N. to adopt a conflict of interest policy that would prevent fossil fuel industry representatives from exercising influence at COP. “There’s a real dangerous tokenism of youth for the benefit of public image.”
The OGCI gathering was a particularly egregious example of youth-washing.OGCI has provided funding to Student Energy, and OGCI ventures director Rhea Hamilton is on the group’s board of directors. Among the “partners” listed in Student Energy’s 2018 annual report are Royal Dutch Shell and Suncor, one of Canada’s biggest tar sands producers.Fossil fuel companies consistently fund the organization’s annual conference.
Although Student Energy’s leaders often echo the talking points of activists like Thunberg, the group’s membership — a network it claims includes 40,000 young people — is largely made up of people who want to work in the energy industry.
Student Energy is among the youth groups granted observer status at COP 25, meaning that its members can gain access to negotiation spaces, speak with the negotiating parties, and participate in events. Its presence at the U.N.’s international climate talks is only expected to grow. Student Energy’s 2018 report noted that the group had seen a 73 percent increase in active chapters. Next year, the oil and gas major BP has pledged to send 50 Student Energy delegates to COP26. The funding would double the size of the group’s usual delegation, according to a BP press release. In a conference space that serves as a battleground of ideas about how to address the climate crisis, BP apparently sees Student Energy’s presence as beneficial to the corporation.
But Student Energy’s funders, some of the corporations most responsible for the climate crisis, show no signs of slowing down. Suncor’s production portfolio, which includes mostly tar sands extraction, is the most carbon intensive of the 100 largest fossil fuel companies in the world, and the company has pushed hard for new pipelines that would allow it to continue to increase production. Shell, the world’s 11th-largest greenhouse gas-emitting oil and gas company, is projected to increase its fossil fuel output by 38 percent by 2030. BP, the 14th-largest emitter, will up production by 20 percent.
The corporations’ projections fly in the face of the measures scientists say are required to meet the U.N.’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030. The point of the COP is to move toward that goal.
Adler told The Intercept that Student Energy participated in the OGCI event in order to challenge the oil and gas industry face to face. She said the organization follows strict partnership principles that prevent funders from wielding influence over the group’s activities. A large proportion of the organization’s members want to work in the renewables industry, not for a fossil fuel company, she added, and next year they will be diversifying their funding sources significantly.
As for BP’s COP26 funding, Adler said that Student Energy has not officially accepted the money. “We’re examining what that looks like and the implications of that and if they’re the right partner.”
To Taylor Billings, a spokesperson for the nonprofit Corporate Accountability, it’s no surprise that the industry is seeking a youth movement to collaborate with. As she put it, “If zebras were leading the march, fossil fuel corporations and global north governments would be clambering to get into the zoo.”
Youth-Washing at the United Nations
The U.N. has done little to eliminate opportunities for youth-washing at its conferences. Since 2015, the international governing body has held an annual Global Youth Video Competition, in which participants submit short films highlighting climate action. The prize this year: a fully funded trip to COP 25.
youth-climate-cop-1576254018Youth delegates from SustainUS during an action at COP 25 on Dec. 4, 2019. The group has been a key youth voice against corporate influence at the climate talks. Photo: Courtesy of David Tong]
But alongside several U.N. agencies sponsoring the project was the BNP Paribas Foundation, which is funded by a bank that spent more than $50 billion in fossil fuel investments between 2016 and 2018. In response, 29 climate organizations that work with young people sent a letter to the U.N. organizers of the project.
“This kind of corporate capture of a youth empowerment initiative is not only disappointing, but outright criminal,” the letter said, noting that BNP Paribas is the fifth-largest fossil fuel financier in Europe. The organizations called on the U.N. to “immediately terminate their partnership with BNP Paribas to ensure that youth engagement remains free from the influence of big polluters and their financiers.”
“Do not be responsible for the corruption of our courage and action,” the authors urged.
The U.N. dismissed the letter. “We share your views on the need to decarbonize the world and to that end also decarbonize investment portfolios of financial institutions as soon as possible,” said Niclas Svenningsen, the U.N.’s manager of Global Climate Action. However, he added, “We believe that it is also important to open the dialogue and look at how stakeholders from different sectors are transitioning their business models.”
To many, the response is typical. When it comes to youth-washing, “the biggest example and most egregious is the United Nations,” said Jonathan Palash-Mizner, the 17-year-old co-coordinator of Extinction Rebellion Youth U.S., who is attending COP 25. He said that youth spaces at the U.N. often feel like a “kids’ table,” with participants holding little decision-making power.
Meanwhile, “you go into any negotiation and every negotiator will invoke Greta Thunberg,” said Sarah Dobson, a 23-year-old member of the U.K. Youth Climate Coalition. “It’s embarrassing because they’re not going to live up to that vision.”
Youth strikers to stage sit-in at un climate talks during the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change -COP25 on day 6, in December 6, 2019 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Rita Franca/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Youth strikers stage a sit-in during COP 25 on Dec. 6, 2019, in Madrid. Photo: Rita Franca/NurPhoto via Getty Images]
Dobson has been involved with a long-running youth effort to expel conflicts of interest from the COP.The official youth arm of the U.N., YOUNGO, bars its local chapters from entering partnerships with companies “that stand in conflict with the interests of young people.” The group has pushed for years for a policy that would keep anyone who has worked for a fossil fuel company out of future climate conferences and require disclosure of meetings between the fossil fuel industry and negotiating nations or U.N. officials.
Related
Why VSCO Girls are Going on Strike for the Climate]
They point to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which states that parties “need to be alert to any efforts by the tobacco industry to undermine or subvert tobacco control efforts” and must protect the agreement from “commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry.”
YOUNGO argued again for a conflict of interest policy at a June U.N. gathering where COP logistics were discussed — but with the U.S., the European Union, and other global north delegates dismissive of the idea, they lost.
“Politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening when in fact almost nothing is being done apart from clever accounting and creative PR.”
So, as COP 25 kicked off in Madrid last week, an array of representatives of the fossil fuel industry roamed the hallways alongside the negotiators who will decide the shape of the most important international climate agreement. Leaders from BP, Shell, Total, and Suncor all received accreditation to attend the conference via the industry-led International Emissions Trading Association, which has observer status. Other delegations invited representatives from Chevron, Petrobras, and other fossil fuel corporations. Meanwhile, among the sponsors of COP 25 was the utility company Endesa, the largest carbon emitter in Spain.
The fossil fuel industry has attempted to obstruct a strong climate agreement since the U.N. began negotiating the issue in the 1990s. This year, industry trade associations weighed in most heavily on a section of the agreement known as Article 6, which includes rules for emissions trading schemes. Overall, international carbon trading systems have failed to significantly reduce emissions where they’ve been implemented. Instead of simply forcing cuts via regulations, the markets allow companies to invest in climate offset projects that, in many cases, have been found to have little genuine climate impact.
The shape of the markets will make a huge difference in how much the fossil fuel industry will have to pay. At the COP, as Dobson put it, “Corporations are literally everywhere.”
Fossil Fuel Companies #MaketheFuture
Youth-washing has proliferated beyond the U.N.’s climate gatherings.
Robb pointed to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s meeting with Thunberg in September, held before he participated in a youth-led Fridays for Future march, where he was heckled by Canadians who labeled him a climate criminal. Trudeau has tried hard to frame himself as serious about the climate, but last year his government purchased Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain pipeline, a highly contested and carbon-intensive project key to keeping Canada’s tar sands industry profitable.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg in Montreal on Friday, Sept. 27, 2019. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP)Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg in Montreal on Sept. 27, 2019. Photo: Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP]
Of course, the most disturbing examples of youth-washing involve the fossil fuel industry. This year, BP sponsored the annual One Young World conference, sometimes referred to as “Young Davos,” and paid for 30 students focused on low-carbon energy issues to attend. At the October event, BP’s CEO and its chief economist took turns on stage. “But hang on — I’m chief economist at BP, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies. What’s BP doing here? Aren’t we part of the problem? Now, I truly believe we’re not,” the economist, Spencer Dale, pitched the audience. “Companies like BP can be, and indeed need to be, part of the solution.”
And Shell has launched a #MaketheFuture campaign, suggesting that it’s building a better future rather than destroying it.The campaign promotes Shell as a driver of low-carbon technology and features images of young people as well as social media posts about the company’s funding of youth engineering and science programs.
Even the far-right CO2 Coalition, funded by the Kochs’ fossil fuel money and led by former Trump advisers who claim that CO2 emissions are good for the earth, is attempting to recruit young people. After struggling to attract support from young Republican staffers, the group has reportedly sought out students on college campuses in an attempt to “reach them a little earlier.”
“They have pretty much endless money to go out and try to move whichever constituency is most resistant to their agenda,” said 26-year-old Julian Brave NoiseCat, vice president of the progressive think tank Data for Progress.
Related
Greta Thunberg on the Climate Fight: “If We Can Save the Banks, Then We Can Save the World”]
Indeed, the tar sands giant Suncor was also the “founding partner” of Student Energy’s first Indigenous Student Energy Summit, held last January — an opportunity for the company to reach two demographics associated with fossil fuel resistance at once. Other funders of the Indigenous youth conference included Enbridge, TC Energy, and LNG Canada, all of which stand to profit from tar sands pipelines that have been halted by Indigenous-led coalitions.
Adler said that, until recently, it was only the fossil fuel industry that showed interest in funding the group’s programming. “The reality is there were very few types of organizations that were interested in youth until about a year ago,” she said.
As COP 25 wound down, with key issues unresolved, Thunberg was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. In a speech at the U.N. the same day, she referenced the way corporations and politicians have co-opted her words. “Those phrases are all that people focus on. They don’t remember the facts, the very reasons why I say those things in the first place,” she said. “I still believe that the biggest danger is not inaction — the real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening when, in fact, almost nothing is being done apart from clever accounting and creative PR.”
What’s at stake, said Dobson, is the watering down of a forceful youth movement. “For corporations to take our images, to take the symbols of our movement and use them to validate their own activities completely disrespects the effort we put into building this grassroots movement,” she said. “It gives the illusion that the youth have sold out their values to support the activities of horrible businesses.”
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stratfor hired/angling?
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/activists-block-suncor-oil-sands-operation/article4287110/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
2009
Activists block Suncor oil sands operation
Open this photo in gallery: A bitumen field in Suncor's oil sands operations north of Fort McMurray , Alberta
A bitumen field in Suncor's oil sands operations north of Fort McMurray , Alberta
CALGARY
MARCH 26, 2017
SEPTEMBER 30, 2009
Environmental activists said Wednesday they canoed into Suncor Energy Inc.'s Alberta oil sands operation, blocking equipment in a second protest action in as many weeks aimed at disrupting crude production.
Greenpeace said 23 of its activists entered Canada's second-largest oil sands operation, stopping conveyor belts that carry bitumen from the mine to an upgrading plant that processes the tar-like crude into light oil.
The move, part of a long-running campaign against production from what the group refers to as "tar sands," is the second this month. Two weeks ago, protesters chained themselves to equipment at Royal Dutch Shell's oil sands mine as they sought to highlight what they view as excessive greenhouse gas emissions from the region's oil production operations.
"We came here to send a message and we want to make sure that message is heard," said Jessica Wilson, a spokeswoman for the group, who was among the protesters at the Suncor site. "This is all a push towards (climate talks in) Copenhagen to encourage world leaders to come to a strong climate deal that includes shutting down the tar sands."
Suncor officials were not immediately available to comment on how the action was affecting production at the 300,000 barrel a day operation, located north of the oil sands hub of Fort McMurray, Alta.
Ms. Wilson said the protesters had not yet been approached by Suncor officials, adding that their canoes and kayaks were followed down the Athabasca River by a company motorboat that became stuck on a sandbank.
The activists have not said how long they expect to remain at the site.
Two weeks ago, Greenpeace activists chained themselves to a mining shovel and dump truck at Shell's nearby mine, a protest timed to coincide with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's visit with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington.
Shell temporarily halted production at the mine.
Greenpeace ended its demonstration after about a day, and its activists faced no charges.
==
calgary herald
2009
Suncor takes Greenpeace to court
Here's the latest - Suncor is suing Greenpeace for disrupting its
operations last week.
:{:{(}::{BTW - it is absolutely outrageous that the reporter (or his editor)}:
is linking the tar sands actions to the Encana gas pipeline bombings
in this article, with the inference being GP is somehow connected to
the bombings.)}:
Suncor takes Greenpeace to court - $1.5M lawsuit comes after protest at mine
By Shaun Polczer, Calgary Herald October 9, 2009 9:08 PM
CALGARY - Environmental protesters say they will continue to target
oilsands facilities in the face of lawsuits and criminal charges after
Suncor Energy filed a $1.5-million lawsuit against the environmental
group Greenpeace in the wake of a protest at itsFort McMurray mine
earlier this month.
Greenpeace leader Mike Hudema confirmed the group has been served with
a statement of claim in relation to the Sept. 30 incident in which 23
activists forced their way into Suncor’s plant site and occupied an
oilsands ore processing unit. The standoff ended after RCMP moved in
to arrest the demonstrators.
“We’re going to continue to do this work,” he said in a phone
interview from Edmonton. “I think it’s criminal that these companies
can get away with what they’re doing. The damage they’re doing pales
to the actions of peaceful protesters. For them to prosecute peaceful
protesters at the end of the day is wrong.”
Suncor spokeswoman Sneh Seetal confirmed the company filed the
statement of claim on Oct. 7 as part of a broader injunction seeking
to bar Greenpeace protesters from its plant site. The statement of
claim is a necessary component of the injunction, which was filed
Sept. 30, and the
$1.5 million is a preliminary figure based mostly on the value of lost
oil production, she added. “We are continuing to review what the total
damages may be in relation to the civil claim,” she said in an
interview.
The Suncor protest was one in a series of actions against oilsands
producers carried out by Greenpeace in recent weeks, including a
similar demonstration at Shell Canada’s Scotford upgrader near Fort
Saskatchewan last weekend featuring live webcam footage, media
interviews and commentary that was made available over the Internet.
The Shell incident earned Greenpeace a rebuke from Premier Ed
Stelmach, who vowed to use “the force of the law to deal with these
people.” Greenpeace in turn accused the premier of using his political
influence to undermine the justice system.
On Thursday, the protests shifted to France, where activists entered a
Total refinery in Normandy and hung banners denouncing the French
state oil company’s involvement in northern Alberta. On Friday, the
group defaced four Total billboards in the Edmonton area, accusing the
company of being committed to “environmental destruction.”
In a media release, Greenpeace claims 37 of its members from Canada,
France, Brazil and Australia have been arrested in the past three
weeks on charges ranging from break and enter, trespassing and
mischief.
Other oilpatch protests have been less than peaceful. On Wednesday in
B.C., Dawson Creek RCMP urged local residents to be vigilant on the
first anniversary of a series of bombings against EnCana Corp.’s
natural gas pipelines. The company has posted a reward of $1 million
after six bomb attacks in the past year. The perpetrator remains at
large.
John Redekop, a professor emeritus at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University
in Waterloo, Ont., who also teaches part time at Trinity Western
University in Abbotsford, B.C., said western cultures have a tradition
of disobeying laws perceived to be unjust extending back to biblical
times. He has lectured extensively on the topic and written a book,
The Christian and Civil Disobedience, that has been translated into
multiple languages.
He said civil disobedience is “moral” provided that nobody is hurt and
all other avenues of appeal have been exhausted. As with Greenpeace,
perpetrators are often willing to be arrested to make a point, he
added, similar to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, who were both
arrested protesting U.S. racial laws in the 1960s.
Civil disobedience is more common in British Columbia, where protest
groups, including Greenpeace, have disrupted logging operations in old
growth forests. In that sense, Redekop said, he’s prepared to assert
the validity of the oilsands protests, but refused to condone the
bombings.
“Some trespassing, some disruption, I can accept,” he said. “But that
(the EnCana bombings) is not civil disobedience, it’s a crime.”
Seetal argued that Greenpeace didn’t respond to overtures to meet with
the company and its members placed themselves and others in harm’s
way. Protesters at the site refused the company’s offer to provide
basic protective equipment such as hard hats and safety glasses, she
said. Consequently, the company chose to shut down operations until
the demonstration ended.
“The fact of the matter is that they were trespassing. Not only were
they putting themselves in danger, but they put our employees in
danger, our subcontractors in danger along with all the other visitors
on the site.”
spolczer@theherald.canwest.com
==
9/09
pres of GP cda?
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-suncor-oilsands-greenpeace-idUSTRE58T4ZB20090930
==
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/11-charged-in-greenpeace-oilsands-protest-1.716360
==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suncor_Energy
Suncor Energy is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. Suncor ranks number 134 in the Forbes Global 2000 list.[4]
Until 2010, Suncor marketed products and services to retail customers in Ontario through a downstream network of 280 branded as Sunoco, and 200 customer-operated retail and diesel sites. Following the acquisition of former Crown corporation Petro-Canada, Suncor converted its Sunoco stations (which were all in Ontario) to Petro-Canada sites in order to unify all of its downstream retail operations under the Petro-Canada banner throughout Canada. It also enabled the company to discontinue paying licensing fees for the Sunoco brand to Sunoco Inc. in the United States. Nationwide, Petro-Canada's upstream product supplier and parent company is Suncor Energy. Suncor also markets through a retail network of Phillips 66-branded outlets in Colorado.
Contents
History
1919-2000
Suncor was founded in 1919 in Montreal as Sun Company of Canada, a subsidiary of Sun Oil (now Sunoco). In 1979, Sun formed Suncor by merging its Canadian refining and retailing interests; Great Canadian Oil Sands (a majority-owned subsidiary, which constructed and operated the first commercial plant to develop Canada's Athabasca oil sands and went on production in 1967); and its conventional oil and gas interests. In 1981, the Government of Ontario purchased a 25% stake in the company; it divested in 1993. In 1995 Sun Oil also divested its interest in the company, although Suncor maintained the Sunoco retail brand in Canada. Suncor took advantage of these two divestitures to become an independent, widely held public company.
2000-present
On March 23, 2009, Suncor announced the acquisition of Petro-Canada.[5][6] This merger created a company with a combined market capitalization of C$43.3 billion. On 4 June 2009, a 98% approval rate was reached by Suncor's shareholders for the acquisition of Petro-Canada and the Competition Bureau approved the merger on June 21, 2009.[7][8] The merger with Canada's 11th largest company was completed on August 1, 2009 ^[9] in a $21 billion deal to form the second-largest company in Canada (after Royal Bank of Canada) in terms of market capitalization.[10]
On 27 June 2013, the company ranked first in a table of Canada's 100 biggest companies by revenue published by The Globe and Mail.
In October 2015, Suncor launched a hostile takeover bid for Canadian Oil Sands worth around $3.29 billion, following rejected advances earlier in the year in March and April.[11]
On 27 April 2016, Suncor announced that they had reached a $937-million deal to acquire Murphy Oil Corp.'s five per cent stake in the Syncrude project north of Fort McMurray, Alta. This follows the takeover of Canadian Oil Sands less than a year ago, and will increase its interest in Syncrude from just under 49 per cent to nearly 54 per cent, making it the majority shareholder of the project. ^[12]
Operations
In North America, Suncor develops and produces oil and natural gas in Western Canada, Colorado, and offshore drilling in eastern Canada. Its international efforts include offshore developments in the North Sea, and conventional, land-based efforts in Libya, Syria, and Trinidad and Tobago. Suncor operates refineries in Edmonton, Alberta; Sarnia, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec and Commerce City, Colorado. These refineries supply industrial, retail and commercial consumers. The company is also one of the largest Canadian retailers of petroleum products.[13]
Bitumen, oil and natural gas production
Suncor is the world's largest producer of bitumen, and owns and operates an oil sands upgrading plant near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. Originally developed by Great Canadian Oil Sands, a majority-owned subsidiary of Sun Oil, it is now wholly owned by the independent Suncor. It was the first commercial development on the Athabasca oil sands, although small, earlier projects like that at Bitumount also played a role in development. The company holds a 36.75% interest in the Joslyn north oil sands project which was shelved pending an economic review by operator Total S.A. in May 2014. The company also produces conventional oil, heavy crude oil, and natural gas.[14]
Refining
In Canada, Suncor operates refineries in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. The company also has a refinery in Colorado, US. The company's 135,000-barrel-per-day Edmonton, refinery runs entirely on oil sands-based feedstocks and produces a high-yield of light oils. A 137,000-barrel-per-day Montreal refinery produces gasoline, distillates, asphalts, heavy fuel oil, petrochemicals, solvents and feedstock for lubricants. An 85,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Sarnia, Ontario produces gasoline, kerosene, jet and diesel fuels. A 98,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Commerce City, Colorado produces gasoline, diesel fuel and paving-grade asphalt.[14]
In December 2009, Husky Energy announced that it had entered into an agreement with Suncor Energy and Suncor Energy Products to purchase 98 retail outlets in the Ontario market.[15] These gas stations were to be converted from Sunoco to the Husky brand.
Suncor operated retail fuel operations under the brand names of Sunoco exclusively in Ontario until the merger of Petro-Canada and Suncor Energy on August 1, 2009. Suncor now sells its products under the Petro-Canada name across Canada. Suncor has also converted many Sunoco-branded gas stations to Petro-Canada stations. As of 2013, all former Sunoco branded stations are operating under either the Petro-Canada or Husky names. In the United States, it operates retail outlets in Colorado as Shell and Phillips 66, under licence from Shell Oil Company (the United States subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell) and Phillips 66, respectively.[16]
On April 13, 2012, Suncor Energy Products Inc. paid a $500,000 fine for being found guilty of price-fixing, by one of the company's gas stations in Ontario. This result came from a larger investigation into price-fixing by Ontario gasoline retailers.[17]
Environmental record
According to a Pollution Watch fact sheet, in 2007 Suncor Energy's oil sands operations had the sixth highest greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.[18][19] While Suncor has reduced the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of its oil sands operations by more than 50% since 1990, total greenhouse gas emissions from the company's operations have increased because of growing oil sands production.
On April 2, 2009, Suncor was fined $675,000 for failing to install pollution control equipment at its Firebag operation near Fort McMurray, Alberta in July 2006. On the same day, Suncor was fined $175,000[20] for dumping untreated wastewater from a company work camp near Fort McMurray into the Athabasca River in 2007.[21][22]
In the United States, Suncor has also been fined by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. In April 2012, a fine of $2.2 million was assessed for air pollution. Suncor failed to monitor and control emissions a number of times throughout 2009 and 2010, and numerous emissions exceeded regulations.[23] Suncor was also cited for "failure to conduct equipment inspections, train employees, and fully develop standard procedures for operating equipment".[24] Additionally, a benzene leak into Sand Creek was discovered in the fall of 2011. Employees at Suncor and the nearby Metro Wastewater Reclamation District Plant were exposed to benzene through the air and through drinking water.[25][26]
By 2009, Suncor was working to reduce the amount of bitumen entering tailings ponds. In 2009, under the auspices of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Suncor teamed with the University of Alberta and Matrikon, an Edmonton-based software company, to develop separation-cell technology to potentially reduce the amount of bitumen entering tailings ponds by 50 per cent.[27]
By 2009, Suncor operated four wind farms. These provided 147 megawatts of power, providing an annual CO2 offset of 284,000 tonnes compared to coal-generated electricity.[citation ^needed][when?] Suncor's ethanol facility in St. Clair, Ontario produces 200 million litres of ethanol per year.[citation ^needed] This ethanol is blended into retail gasoline products sold at Sunoco and some Petro-Canada service stations.
Awards and honours
==