spencer walrath EID depth

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see EID 2 attacks on Rockefeller, climate lawsuits

SEE FTI

SEE IPAA:eid a pjt of ipaa itself says

he is lead hit man on climate lawsuits? // HORNER

cleta?!

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THACKER -->

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ref 2 BS

https://eidclimate.org/something-tells-us-this-attempt-by-activists-to-make-apiknew-a-thing-is-going-to-fail-again/

anti-energy activists on Twitter are circulating a letter-to-the-editor published in the journal Nature which claims to show that the American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry trade group, was informed of the existence of climate change in 1965. 350.org’s Jamie Henn described the news as “criminal” and “immoral,” while Politico suggested the revelation may spawn a new front in the #ExxonKnew campaign: #APIKnew.

But in rushing to share this letter, activists and reporters forgot that they’ve tried this before – and failed spectacularly.

Déjà vu, all over again

In April 2016 the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) published a directory of industry documents as part of its support for the #ExxonKnew Campaign. According to CIEL, “In 1968, a report commissioned by the oil industry detailed rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and warned of potentially catastrophic climate risks.” CIEL would issue new press releases in May and July of that same year, though they were ultimatelyunable to attract much attention.[ICN LAT]

Now activists hope to make a bigger splash with a document from 1965, three years prior to their previously touted report. But the document they cite, API president Frank Ikard’s speech at the group’s 1965 annual meeting, is not a characterization of the energy industry’s internal understanding of climate change. No: Ikard was instead relaying the findings of President Lyndon Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee’s report, which had been published three days prior. Ikard, it would seem, was telling his members about something many of them had already likely seen reported on in the news. Imagine that!

#EveryoneKnew

As InsideClimate News wrote in 2016: “By the 1960s, the CO2 problem was gaining wider scientific recognition, especially as President Lyndon B. Johnson’s science advisers and leading experts brought it to the attention of the White House in 1965.” VICE News, in its reporting on CIEL’s 2016 announcement, wrote:

“Well before the [1968 report commissioned by API], popular media discussed the likely effects of carbon emissions in terms that will be familiar to today’s audience. In 1956, Time magazine noted that ‘in 50 years or so,’ a CO2 buildup ‘may have a violent effect on the earth’s climate.’ A 1958 science film produced by Bell Labs and Hollywood legend Frank Capra talked about possible melting of the polar ice caps if global temperatures rise ‘even a few degrees.’”

Author Has Ties to #ExxonKnew Campaign

The author of the letter in Nature, Benjamin Franta, has strong ties to the anti-fossil fuel activist campaign. The research supporting his letter was funded by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), which is a project of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD). CCI was launched in 2017 by activist Richard Wiles to support “meritorious climate cases aimed at holding fossil fuel companies and other climate polluters liable for the damages they have caused.” Richard Wiles is also the publisher of Climate Liability News, a dark-money “news” site launched in 2017 to promote those climate lawsuits.

In addition to funding Franta’s research, IGSD also recently published a podcast called Drilled, which invites listeners to join them as they “uncover” how the energy industry allegedly “created climate denial and made it viral.” CCI is also funding an activist campaign, Pay Up Climate Polluters,which is pressuring cities like Miami Beach and Houston to file climate liability lawsuits against the energy industry.

Benjamin Franta is no objective researcher, either. Earlier this year he flew to the United Kingdom to give a presentation as part of a panel on “Mobilization for and against fossil fuel development.” You’ll never guess which side of the debate he’s on:

“My name is Ben Franta and I’m from Stanford and I’m a PhD student in the history department there and I’m also a JD student at the law school there. I’m going to talk to you today about both of those things. So, I called it ‘Taking on Big Oil,’ but I really want to call it ‘Kicking Big Oil’s Ass’ – that’s what this talk is about and using history and law and lawsuits. Let’s get started.” (emphasis added)

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walrath 12/17

https://eidclimate.org/calif-climate-suits-not-climate-theyre-bringing-energy-producers/

Several California communities have recently brought suits as part of a larger political campaign to attack the oil and gas industry, but a profile of one of the lawyers leading the cases published by VICE this morning leaves no question about the motive of these cases. The plaintiffs aren’t seeking to protect themselves from climate change; they’re trying to “bring down the fossil fuel companies.”

VICE’s article profiles Steve Berman of the notorious anti-corporate law firm Hagens Berman. VICE ticks off Berman’s accomplishments:

He forced Jack-in-the-Box to pay $12 million for causing an E. coli outbreak that killed four children. He won a $215 million settlement against Enron for defrauding investors and wiping out employee retirement accounts. He represented auto dealers in a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Volkswagen for cheating on diesel emissions.

Berman is best known, though, for suing big tobacco in the 1990s. At the end of that fight, he helped negotiate a $206 billion settlement from cigarette makers like Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and Brown & Williamson for causing cancer. It remains the largest legal settlement of its kind in history.

Somehow VICE forgot to mention the time Hagens Berman had to pay $10.8 million to its own clients[not named, botl water unsafe?] after it was judged that they failed to act in their clients’ best interest. The firm was also fined for “bad faith advocacy” after a U.S. District judge ruled that Hagens Berman had moved forward with several cases even though they knew the cases were “baseless.” The judge said that one of Hagens Berman’s allegations “gives new meaning to ‘frivolous.’”

Turning to his lawsuits against the oil and gas industry, VICE continues:

The stakes are even higher in his big oil lawsuit. Berman is not just trying to get oil companies to pay for seawalls in the Bay Area. In a broader sense he’s attempting to hold them responsible for endangering all human life on earth. “This is different in kind from anything else,” Timothy Crosland, the director of a UK-based climate law group called Plan B, told me. “Once you get started, you get one case that goes through, this is an avalanche. It’s got the potential really to bring down the fossil fuel companies.” (emphasis added)

That’s what this is and always has been about. Santa Cruz and San Francisco may be legitimately concerned about the effects of climate change on their communities, but their concern is being co-opted by money-hungry lawyers and environmental activists seeking to eliminate fossil fuel companies.

Don’t believe that Berman’s only in this for the money? Per VICE:

As our interview came to a close I asked Berman to describe the best-case scenario for all this. “Imagine if I could get ten or 15 cities to all sue and put the same pressure on the oil companies that we did with tobacco companies and create some kind of massive settlement,” he said. He acted as if it was the first time he’d thought of the idea. But I got the feeling it wasn’t. (emphasis added)

Berman’s already succeeded in securing the largest settlement ever and the only way he can outdo himself is to set his sights on the industry that literally powers the world.

But even if Berman doesn’t get to a settlement, if he can just convince a judge to hear his case, he may get everything he thinks he needs:

As far as Berman is concerned the story isn’t over. On climate change he thinks it’s just getting started. If a judge decides his case can be heard—a big if, considering that no lawsuit against big oil has made it to that stage—then Berman can call on Exxon, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips and Chevron to make internal reports and research into climate change available. “[I’m] dying to get to those documents,” he said. “I’m convinced they’re going to be smoking hot.” (emphasis added)

This dogged pursuit of industry documents tracks with a memo Berman’s new partner, #ExxonKnew activist Matt Pawa, sent to billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer. Pawa wrote a memo in 2015 pitching Steyer on the idea of convincing Californian communities to sue the oil and gas industry over climate change. The memo suggests that “simply proceeding to the discovery phase of a global warming case would be significant.”Pawa’s firm wasacquiredby Hagens Bermanearlier this year “in an effort to pursue climate change litigation against companies,” and Pawa is now leading the San Francisco and Oakland cases.

There is hope that these cases will not progress that far. In her 2009 decision in a related case, U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong wrote, “There is no realistic possibility of tracing any particular alleged effect of global warming to any particular emissions by an specific person, entity, group at any particular point in time.”

“The litigants misunderstand nuisance law,” attorney Scott Segal told the Washington Post earlier this year. “In the case of global climate change, a molecule of carbon is literally around the world in seven days. The requisite causation needed for nuisance suits is missing and unprovable.”

Having failed to pass a national climate policy out of Congress and after watching President Trump dismantle President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, these activists are completely sidelining democracy and trying to push their agenda through the courts. If successful, a handful of extremists will have imposed their radical anti-fossil fuel policy on the entire country, which has repeatedly rejected their efforts.

They're About “Bring[ing] Down” Energy Producers - EID Climate

https://eidclimate.org › calif-climate-suits-not-climate-th...

Dec 22, 2017 — Berman is best known, though, for suing big tobacco in the 1990s. At the end of that fight, he helped negotiate a $206 billion settlement from ...

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https://www.energyindepth.org/exxonknew-attempts-to-reset-flailing-campaign-witha-billboard/?154

[[eid a pjt of ipaa it says

no lnx pix

twt

NATIONAL

#EXXONKNEW ATTEMPTS TO RESET FLAILING CAMPAIGN WITH…A BILLBOARD?

BY SPENCER WALRATH OCT. 25, 2017 Leave a Comment

Public Citizen and a new project called the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) have launched a new campaign targeting oil and gas companies in the wake of recent hurricanes. The groups have put up two billboards in Houston asking when “climate polluters” will “pay their fair share” and directing people to visit WhoPaysForHarvey.com. But a peek behind the curtain reveals that this campaign isorganized by the same key players behind the #ExxonKnew campaign and is just the latest attempt to reset their struggling effort to attack the oil and gas industry.

As a refresher, Public Citizen has been active in the #ExxonKnew campaign for nearly two years. Rob Weissman, Public Citizen’s president, attended a secret closed-door meeting in January 2016 at the offices of the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF), which has bankrolled the #ExxonKnew campaign. Activists at that meeting included Kert Davies, Matt Pawa, 350.org’s Bill McKibben, and Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) president Carroll Muffett, among others.

The purpose of the meeting was “to establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution,” and “to delegitimize them as a political actor.” After a quick break for lunch, the group reconvened to ask:

“Does this group want to establish a rapid response and coordination structure to react to new research, revelations and legal developments as they happen? A higher level of coordination with a war room, joint social media, and coordinated organizing and media pushes?”

Nearly two years later, we’ve seen the degree to which these groups have actively coordinated with each other and their allies.

CCI launched last month as a project of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD). IGSD was founded by Durwood Zaelke, who was the co-founder and president of CIEL from 1989-2003. Richard Wiles is the director of what is now CCI and is also the publisher of a new climate liability website, Climate Liability News (CLN), which launched in July. CLN has paid particularly close attention to developments in the investigations of and lawsuits against ExxonMobil, devoting a unique page on its website to the issue. Kert Davies, who attended the January 2016 RFF meeting, is listed as a member of CLN’s board, alongside Wiles and Alyssa Johl, a former CIEL attorney.

Matt Pawa,a trial lawyer who attended the January 2016 RFF meeting and serves on the board of CIEL, recently spoke at a conference with Public Citizen’s Weissman. Pawa has chased big payouts from companies for their contributions to climate change for years and is currently leading a climate change lawsuit filed by San Francisco and Oakland against five oil and gas companies.

Following the RFF group’s plan to “establish a rapid response and coordination structure to react to new…developments,” Bill McKibben, a top promoter of the #ExxonKnew campaign, tweeted a photo of one of the Houston billboards as soon as they went up.

Adrian Shelley, the director of Public Citizen Texas, told the Houston Chronicle that the billboards and website are “just the beginning of a larger national campaign.” WhoPaysForIrma.com has already been registered, though that site has not yet launched.

And while theslick website at WhoPaysForHarvey.com features all of eight sentences blaming oil and gas companies for Hurricane Harvey, it does not link to additional information or resources and offers no way to help the victims of Harvey and no solutions to address climate change. Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry pledged over $32.3 million to Harvey relief efforts. [ASKED FOR BILLIONS$ TO FORTIFY SHIP CHANNEL?]It remains to be seen how this new campaign’s billboards and barebones website will help address climate change.

What is clear is that these various efforts to attempt to bring climate litigation against oil and gas companies are being perpetrated by the same handful of activists who have been pursuing these companies for years.The goal isn’t to win the cases; it’s to generate publicity– a goal shared by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman with his investigation of ExxonMobil.

Activists are trying to create a public narrative that oil and gas companies deserve all of the blame for climate change, thereby shifting the blame from the individuals who rely on fossil fuels (including these activists) to the companies providing fossil fuels. The goal, as laid out in their memo nearly two years ago, is to “delegitimize them” and convince the public that oil and gas companies are corrupt. Or, as that memo’s author put it:

TAGS: 350.org, Alyssa Johl, Bill McKibben, Carroll Muffett, CCI, Center for Climate Integrity, Center for International Environmental Law, CIEL, Climate Litigation News, CLN, Durwood Zaelke, Eric Schneiderman, Exxon, ExxonKnew, ExxonMobil, Harvey, IGSD, Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, Irma, Johl, Kenny Bruno, Kert Davies, Matt Pawa, Matthew Pawa, McKibben, Pawa, Public Citizen, RFF, Richard Wiles, Rob Weissman, Rockefeller Family Fund, Schneiderman, Weissman, Wiles, Zaelke

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LNX

public Citizen and a new project called the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) have launched a new campaign targeting oil and gas companies in the wake of recent hurricanes. The groups have put up two billboards in Houston asking when “climate polluters” will “pay their fair share” and directing people to visit WhoPaysForHarvey.com. But a peek behind the curtain reveals that this campaign is organized by the same key players behind the #ExxonKnew campaign and is just the latest attempt to reset their struggling effort to attack the oil and gas industry.

As a refresher, Public Citizen has been active in the #ExxonKnew campaign for nearly two years. Rob Weissman, Public Citizen’s president, attended a secret closed-door meeting in January 2016 at the offices of the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF), which has bankrolled the #ExxonKnew campaign. Activists at that meeting included Kert Davies, Matt Pawa, 350.org’s Bill McKibben, andCenter for International Environmental Law (CIEL) president Carroll Muffett, among others.

“Does this group want to establish a rapid response and coordination structure to react to new research, revelations and legal developments as they happen? A higher level of coordination with a war room, joint social media, and coordinated organizing and media pushes?”

Nearly two years later, we’ve seen the degree to which these groups have actively coordinated with each other and their allies.

Matt Pawa, a trial lawyer who attended the January 2016 RFF meeting and serves on the board of CIEL, recently spoke at a conference with Public Citizen’s Weissman. Pawa has chased big payouts from companies for their contributions to climate change for years and is currently leading a climate change lawsuit filed by San Francisco and Oakland against five oil and gas companies.

[tet pix]

adrian Shelley, the director of Public Citizen Texas, told the Houston Chronicle that the billboards and website are “just the beginning of a larger national campaign.” WhoPaysForIrma.com has already been registered, though that site has not yet launched.

And while the slick website at WhoPaysForHarvey.com features all of eight sentences blaming oil and gas companies for Hurricane Harvey, it does not link to additional information or resources and offers no way to help the victims of Harvey and no solutions to address climate change. Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry pledged over $32.3 million to Harvey relief efforts. It remains to be seen how this new campaign’s billboards and barebones website will help address climate change.

What is clear is that these various efforts to attempt to bring climate litigation against oil and gas companies are being perpetrated by the same handful of activists who have been pursuing these companies for years. The goal isn’t to win the cases; it’s to generate publicity – a goal shared by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman with his investigation of ExxonMobil.

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eid has tab/category for NYAG

https://eidclimate.org/ny-attorney-general-exxonmobil/

In October 2019, the trial finally begins for the New York Attorney General’s case against ExxonMobil—nearly five years after the investigation began. This is nearly five years since the investigation began under Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and the current complaint is far from where Schneiderman’s original investigation began as a rehashing of the failed #ExxonKnew argument.

The complaint now centers on a technical matter about how the company calculates “proxy costs” versus “greenhouse gas costs,” with the New York Attorney General alleging the company did not accurately explain to investors how it uses those costs. However, it appears that the AG either misunderstands ExxonMobil’s past representations or was simply forced to lodge their best complaint after such a lengthy investigation. One month before the Attorney General filed their lawsuit, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission concluded an investigation of ExxonMobil that examined the same issues raised in the AG’s complaint and decided against taking an enforcement action against the company.

The shifting focus of the Attorney General’s drawn-out investigation, combined with public statements made at the outset and other communications made by third parties, indicate that this lawsuit is the result of a pre-determined narrative that assumed ExxonMobil’s guilt from the beginning. The Attorney General used the power of the government to engage in a fishing expedition, creating new theories of alleged wrongdoing as each prior theory failed to be borne out by the evidence.

Only after a judge ordered the Attorney General to bring a complaint or end the investigation did the Attorney General file a lawsuit based on a misunderstanding of the difference between “proxy costs” and “greenhouse gas costs.”

A Timeline of the New York Attorney General’s Lawsuit Against ExxonMobil

Download the PDF

The Overreaching Power of the Martin Act

The Martin Act is a unique law governing securities, giving New York’s attorney general vast power over publicly-traded companies. Learn more about how this law is being abused.

ExxonMobil’s Trial Against the New York Attorney General: What You Should Know

Nearly four years after announcing its investigation into ExxonMobil, the NY AG is focusing its case on a relatively obscure allegation of how the company accounts for the costs of potential future regulations on climate change. Learn more about how the investigation has shiftedas the NY AG came up empty-handed.

Highlighted Media

Wall Street Journal: A Climate Show Trial

Bloomberg Government: New York’s Case That Exxon Defrauded Investors Is in Trouble

Bloomberg: New York Doesn’t Need a Smoking Gun

Boston Globe: The climate change shakedown

New York Post: The incredible collapsing ‘#ExxonKnew’ climate change lie

Legal Newsline: Taxpayers fund ‘rambling’ testimony as judge looks skeptical of New York’s case against Exxon

Fox Business: A Legal Assault on Energy

Washington Examiner: New York Attorney General’s disdain for rule of law exposed in ExxonMobil case

Times Union: State abusing law with ExxonMobil suit

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https://eidclimate.org/eid-investigation-sheds-lights-on-activist-driven-media-platform/

you know your famous/near the target when the flak gets heavy:

Earlier this week, EID released our investigation into the new Drilled News platform, shedding light into the connections between this new media initiative and the climate litigation campaign. Thanks to our efforts, the platform was forced to come clean about their funders and relationship to the problematic litigation campaign.

Richard Wiles, Confirmed Key Contributor

Richard Wiles’ Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) has played an integral part in the climate litigation campaign including running numerous social media campaigns, hosting events across the country to promote litigation, submitting an amicus brief, and hiring a lobbyist to arrange meetings between city officials and plaintiffs’ attorneys. CCI is funded by billionaire donors both foreign and domestic to wage a climate litigation campaign against the nation’s energy producers and continues to be opaque about its backers.

While Drilled News is not a direct advocacy arm of CCI, it is closely linked with the project and its executive director, Richard Wiles. Drilled News now admits that Wiles played an instrumental role in obtaining their initial launch grant from the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD), CCI’s parent organization:

“Wiles introduced us to the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, which was critical to landing our initial launch grant. For that, we have consistently thanked him in our credits.”

Drilled was also forced to acknowledge that while they have editorial independence from IGSD, Wiles continues to play an active role in influencing the direction of the organization and is a key source for new story ideas:

“Does Wiles constantly send us pitches and ideas, and sometimes even unsolicited critiques of our work? Yes.”

Downplaying their relationship

Despite their admissions, Drilled continues to downplay their relationship with CCI. They claim their funding comes from IGSD – not CCI. However, the most recent season of their podcast tells a slightly different story. The transcript of season three, episode two reads as follows:

In addition, while Drilled admits that they gave Wiles an “executive producer” credit during the first season, they allege that such “lofty titles” were given to several individuals and weren’t reflective of their work on the show. However, Wiles is the only person ever disclosed as an executive producer of the show, and has the most prestigious title of anyone listed in the podcast’s credits:

[credits]

Conclusion

In the end, the mere admission of this close relationship with Richard Wiles is an important lens to interpret Drilled News’ current and future content.

Far from objective, the Drilled podcast has relied on interviews from some of the most high-profile activists in the climate litigation space, including Kert Davies, Matt Pawa, Sher Edling consultant Ann Carlson, Geoffrey Supran, and ERI lawyer Marco Simons. In contrast, they have never interviewed a single energy company featured on the podcast.

EID is proud of its investigators, who successfully shed newfound transparency on an organization with deep ties to the climate litigation campaign. EID is filling a critical void by providing scrutiny on members of the climate litigation echo chamber and will continue to shed light on groups that lack transparency in their operations.

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https://climateinvestigations.org/exxon-and-friends-still-funding-climate-denial-and-obstruction-through-ipaa-fti-energy-in-depth/

many lnx docs

Exxon and Friends Still Funding Climate Denial and Obstruction Through IPAA, FTI, Energy in Depth

Climate Investigations Center onDecember 20, 2019

Internal documents and conversations from the fracking lobby, revealed this week in HuffPost, shine new light on a ten year old public relations campaign front group called Energy In Depth. Documents show this front group is designed explicitly to exist without the fingerprints of its fossil fuel funders, giving the oil industry the “ability to say, do and write things that individual company employees cannot and should not.”

This reporting reveals how climate denial remains a key oil industry strategy in spite of their efforts to clean up their image. These shrouded attacks on climate science and solutions, attacks on lawmakers, scientists, lawyers and advocates stand in stark contrast to the seemingly desperate efforts of Exxon and their brethren to retain ‘social license’, gain credibility on climate change and distance themselves from their legacy of climate science denial.

Let’s define “climate denial” up front, as we did years ago in a Guardian interview for a story about Edelman PR: “Our definition of denial is anyone who is obstructing, delaying or trying to derail policy steps that are in line with the scientific consensus that says we need to take rapid steps to decarbonize the economy.” Simple enough. It goes beyond just denying that global warming exists.

HuffPost’s reporting shows that Exxon is a member of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), an oil and gas industry trade association whose online assets include “news” sites like Energy In Depth (EID) that spew climate denial and attacks on scientists, journalists, advocates, and lawyers. IPAA acts as a pass through, bundling corporate members’ cash that’s funneled to the firm FTI Consulting, which created and manages sites like EID. An ExxonMobil spokesperson, responding to questions from the HuffPost reporter, tried valiantly to keep the veil in place, saying, “Your questions are better addressed to EID or IPAA.”

IPAA’s long history of denial

The IPAA has a long history of funding and proliferating misinformation on climate change, a legacy that continues to the this day. IPAA was named as a potential funder of the infamous multi-million dollar “uncertainty” campaign detailed in the1998 Global Climate Science Communications Plan, an effort organized by API, Exxon, Chevron, Southern Company and assorted libertarian extremists. You can find that file and others in our ClimateFiles collection.

POTENTIAL FUNDING FOR GLOBAL CLIMATE SCIENCE COMMUNICATIONS (p. 8)

Potential funding sources were identified as American Petroleum Institute (API) and its members; Business Round Table (BRT) and its members, Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and its members; Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and its members; and the National Mining Association (NMA) and its members. - Potential fund allocators were identified as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), Competitive Enterprise Institute, Frontiers of Freedom and the Marshall Institute.

View entire document on DocumentCloud]

The IPAA fact sheet on Climate Change released that same year has some pretty alarming climate denial claims — some even more extreme than the Global Climate Coalition was pushing at the time, and includes references to Fred Singer’s Leipzig Declaration and the Imperial Oil DRI/McGraw Hill study on carbon taxes. IPAA also blame termites and volcanoes — basically everything but fossil fuels — for altering the atmosphere more than fossil fuels:

“Consider this: the largest source of greenhouse gas may be termites, whose digestive activities are responsible for 10 times more production of CO2 than burning fossil fuels.”

“So, since human-related CO2 is only a small portion of total atmospheric CO2, measures taken to limit it will have little or no measurable effect on overall emissions into the atmosphere. More importantly, there is still no evidence that CO2 emissions are warming the earth’s atmosphere. And we have no proof that man’s impact makes a difference at all.”

By 2008, the IPAA had a more nuanced fact sheet on climate change, but still emphasized uncertainty and denial,

“…no climate change policy action should discard the question of science. Too often, recent arguments for action discard the uncertainties of today’s understanding of global climate science. Global climate science is an emerging field, one that changes as the tools to model it improve.”

They know better…

The Washington Post revealed that in a June, 2019 presentation at an IPAA meeting, influential energy lawyer Mark Barron said the “ship has sailed” on using climate science denial as the first line of defense. Instead, Barron advocated lobbying Congress for climate legislation that benefits the oil and gas industry.He drew a sharp contrast between the industry’s former attacks on climate science and a more recent nuanced approach. He told the oil and gas executives and lobbyists gathered at the meeting sponsored by fracking giants Halliburton, Schlumberger and Oxy that they should be ready to talk about global warming, as long as they position fossil fuels as the solution. Despite this, HuffPost reporting shows that Barron’s audience, the IPAA and its members, are still deploying on climate denial and attacks on scientists through projects like EID and other web organs.

Funding Front Groups – FTI and Energy In Depth

IPAA describes Energy in Depth as the industry’s lead “rapid response platform” for the fracking industry. IPAA created Energy in Depth (EID) shortly after the environmental impacts from the fracking boom began to make national headlines. IPAA member Exxon/XTO was one of EID’s first funders.

Internal IPAA Board documents, published by HuffPost, describe the purpose of the project:

“The main focus of EID has evolved into addressing the “Keep It In The Ground” movement.”(Keep it In The Ground refers to activists and scientists working to keep new fossil fuels from being extracted and burned, commensurate with the conclusion by international scientists that we simply cannot burn even a percentage of known and potential fossil fuel reserves if we want to keep global temperatures from rising to dangerous levels.)

Funding for EID comes directly from unnamed oil and gas corporations like Exxon, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Oxy, Marathon Oil, and is funneled through IPAA, which funds the Energy in Depth project on an annual basis.

According IPAA budget documents, the EID campaign costs more than $2 million dollars per year, representing about one fifth of IPAA’s total budget, second only to “Salaries and Benefits” in scale.

BIG QUESTION: What puzzles us is how IPAA is classifying this expense to the IRS. This $2M plus annual payment to FTI does not appear, as required by law, on the IRS 990 form filed by IPAA under “Independent Contractors” “that received more than $100,000 in compensation from the organization.” (see Part VII Section B on page 8 of 2017 990). Perhaps IPAA can provide an explanation.

IPAA 2017 990 Independent Contractors Page 8

The real story of Energy In Depth

Colleagues at DeSmog have been watching Energy in Depth from the beginning, when it was launched to blunt attention to the rapid spread of fracking ten years ago and concerns from community members, lawmakers, journalists and activists.

IPAA’s Jeff Eshelman, described the genesis and purpose of the group in a 2017 IPAA retreat:

The IPAA funding of over $2M a year to FTI/Energy in Depth is spent on five sub-campaigns, meant to undermine the public’s understanding and support of climate and environmental protections:

EID Climate exists “to counteract the “Keep it in the Ground” movement’s newsiest strategy to use climate change as a weapon to silence dissent and shut down American energy production”. The website pushes back on litigation against oil and gas companies.

EID Health is a “rapid response program” to counter studies linking oil and gas drilling and production to health impacts.

Endangered Species Watch is meant to blunt the Federal Endangered Species Act and is described as “disseminating news, regulations and issue alerts to member companies, affiliated industries and policy makers.”

Energy Tax Facts defends tax subsidies for the fossil fuel industry

Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign advocates against movements asking Universities and pension funds to divest from fossil fuels.

FTI has carved out a specialty in aggressive attacks on foes of the oil and gas industry, doing the dirty work that oil corporations would not want their brands tied to in public. An FTI “Technical Paper” report presented at a 2014 Brazilian oil industry conference describes Energy in Depth’s purpose pretty bluntly, stating that the web asset provides the “ability to say, do and write things that individual company employees cannot and should not.” (emphasis added)

The actual work of running EID is contracted out by IPAA to FTI Consulting, a massive global PR and consulting firm. Here are a few individuals we know are connected to the Energy In Depth project and have written themselves into the wrong side of history:

Matt Dempsey, a Managing Director at FTI, manages Energy in Depth and lists himself as an editorial editor WesternWire, another front group run for Western Energy Alliance, another oil trade association like IPAA. Dempsey and a colleague were recently recorded by a lawyer for EarthRights International who called them out for being agents of Exxon, and pretending to be journalists. Exxon is a defendant in the Boulder Colorado lawsuit that EID and WesternWire have tried hard to malign.Dempsey used to work for Senator James Inhofe.

Steve Everley, is an FTI Managing Director of Strategic Communications and a senior advisor on the Energy In Depth project. Inside Climate News ran a lengthy rebuttal to the work Everley did to trash their actual journalism on fracking in 2014.

Spencer Walrath, who is actually an FTI employee (Director, Energy & Natural Resources at FTI Consulting Inc) but pretends to be an journalist on Energy In Depth. He graduated University of Northern Iowa in 2012. Spencer’s FTI job was announced in his college newsletter.

Katie Brown, PhD, who now works for FTI out of Belgium was a major part of Energy in Depth while working for FTI in Washington DC until a couple years ago. This archived 45 slide Powerpoint presentation from 2014 by Brown lays out the IPAA-FTI-EID connection and details all their work to undermine regulations on ozone, groundwater protection, methane emissions and more. (Brown’s PhD is in English, btw and she is or was working on a book on James Joyce…congratulations, but how does that PhD apply to an energy front group website besides using good grammar?)

More EID denial

FTI’s Energy in Depth Climate front group spends most of its pixels trying to trash climate lawsuits, promoting natural gas as a climate solution, and attacking science implicating methane’s role in climate change.Methane, a super greenhouse gas and the main component of “natural gas”, leaks from fracking fields in vast quantities making the current natural gas supply much dirtier fuel than it used to be before fracking became a thing. This point was recently illustrated nicely with FLIR images by the New York Times, and news of this Exxon gas well leak which released more methane in a few weeks than many countries emit in a year.

Each of the EID sub-campaigns employ tactics common to climate deniers, like attacking climate models, denying the impact of methane from fracking, repeating debunked myths about a global pause in warming, and claiming that “one in six climate and earth scientists” think human’s impact on climate change is “little or none.”

Most recently, Spencer Walrath wrote a piece in EID going after a peer reviewed scientific study on ocean acidification and the companies connected to the carbon dioxide that has acidified the ocean, the science of which is even harder to deny than climate change.

And this post by Katie Brown, PhD at EID uses sham science and Wikipedia links to attack calls for accountability for companies like Exxon.

EID “Experts”

On the EID Climate website, the list of experts includes people like Craig Richardson, president of the coal-funded, climate-denying Energy and Environment Legal Institute. Richardson has called climate change a communist plot.

Other experts include Horace Cooper, who is listed as a senior fellow theNational Center for Public Policy Research an organization that has received $445,000 in grants from Exxon over the past two decades including several grants earmarked for climate work.

NCPPR CLIMATE GRANT (p. 44)

View entire document on DocumentCloud]

Cooper is also a Fellow with the preeminent climate science denial group the Heartland Institute. Heartland has held a number of gatherings dedicated to outright climate science denial. Heartland was also heavily funded by Exxon until they dropped them after 2006. The Mercer Family stepped in in 2008 and has given Heartland upwards of $6.7M from 2008-2017. In 2018, this grant appears to have been moved through Donors Trust.

FTI work for other industries with legal and political problems

In 2019, court documents revealed FTI was running opportunities for Monsanto on RoundUp and GMO fights,alternately posing as journalists and attacking journalists, complete with an FTI campaign spreadsheet of steps taken to undermine and intimidate journalist Carey Gillam.

Most recently, FTI produced a report on health care for a front group attacking “Medicare for All” proposals by politicians.

IPAA Lobbying With Climate Denial Under Trump

IPAA is a significant lobbying arm of the oil industry, spending 1.4 million on lobbying in 2018. Freedom of Information Act requests have revealed emails from IPAA lobbyists to key political appointees in the Department of Interior, showing an ignorance of basic climate change information and a willingness to disregard climate science when it gets in the way of oil and gas production.

In one set of emails, IPAA lobbyist Samantha McDonald asked DOI appointees to reduce protections on an endangered species of beetle. A key reason IPAA protested the beetle’s protected status? – because its projected decline was based in part on climate change science. McDonald directly questioned the viability of climate change models, but not before admitting she is “not too familiar” with the 30 year old UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). As proof that the preeminent scientific body studying climate change in the world could not be trusted, she cited a Google search and a random Forbes article. MacDonald wrote to DOI appointee Vincent DeVito in 2017:

“All modeling is done using the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While I am not too familiar with this organization or their work, I did some searching and found this Forbes article discrediting the IPCC, citing irresponsible science practices (intentionally manipulating data, suppressing legitimate opposing arguments, etc.). This may be something to look into and push back on, since most of the climate changes threat analysis in the SSA is based on this work.”

IPAA ON IPCC (p. 214)

View entire document on DocumentCloud

In spite of her lack of science background, IPAA’s McDonald would go on to testify on endangered species law, and the beetle would eventually be “downlisted” by the Trump administration as reported by the Washington Post.

In sum, the Energy In Depth project is entirely consistent with the 30 year campaign (or back to the 1940s…see CIEL’s Smoke and Fumes) by the oil industry to avoid being regulated for environmental harm caused by their products – climate change, air and water pollution. This covert effort contradicts oil industry leaders’ anxious attempts to portray a greener, climate friendly business model in recent years. We can see right through it, but the aim is clear. Between Barron, the lawyer’s comments and IPAA’s front group Energy In Depth, the fossil fuel industry clearly is trying to play it both ways – opposing climate action while pushing natural gas as a solution and trying to benefit from whatever climate policies do come to pass and keep drilling away unchecked. All the while refusing to treat the global climate crisis like the real and present danger that it is. While IPAA lobbyists may try to play good cop in meetings on the Hill, they are actually leaning on old fashioned attacks on science to delay and distort any serious attempt to address climate change.

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Shady Climate Group 'Releases' Industry Documents That ...

https://eidclimate.org › shady-climate-group-releases-in...

December 6, 2019 | Spencer Walrath ... trying to create a scandal by releasing cherry-picked documents from Imperial Oil's publicly available archive, ...

### Activists Don't Succeed, but Try, Try Again on Climate ...

https://eidclimate.org › activists-dont-succeed-but-try-tr...

December 19, 2019 | Spencer Walrath ... It's only been a few weeks since the last uncritical climate attribution story, but climate activists are ...

Exxon and Friends Still Funding Climate Denial and ...

https://climateinvestigations.org › exxon-and-friends-sti...

Dec 20, 2019 — Funding for EID comes directly from unnamed oil and gas corporations like ... Spencer Walrath, who is actually an FTI employee (Director, ...

Shady Climate Group 'Releases' Industry ... - Energy In Depth

https://www.energyindepth.org › shady-climate-group-r...

BY Spencer Walrath Dec. 06, 2019 Leave a Comment. Shares. Kert Davies' Climate ... Learn more about CIC, and the charges against it, at EID Climate.

Week of September 30, 2019 Archives | RealClearEnergy

https://www.realclearenergy.org › am_update

Shale Boom Slowing Just When the World Needs Oil Most ... Adults Have Caused the Climate Fear Plaguing Greta Thunberg ... Spencer Walrath EID. Oil Prices ...

Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) - InfluenceWatch

https://www.influencewatch.org › non-profit › center-f...

WALRATH, SPENCER. “Revealed: Foreign Billionaire Behind the Group Pushing American Cities to Sue Energy Producers.” EID Climate – A Project of IPAA, ...

Full article: Early oil industry disinformation on global warming

https://www.tandfonline.com › ... › Volume 30, Issue 4

by B Franta · 2021 · Cited by 9 — A newly discovered archival document shows the American Petroleum Institute was promulgating false and misleading information about climate ...

Archives - The Right Insight

https://www.therightinsight.org › page:21

June 29, 2018; Climate Change; Spencer Walrath. Climate Lawsuits In 'Dire Jeopardy' Get ... Climate litigation: big oil must fight on the science or die.

EID Investigation Sheds Light on Activist-Driven Media Platform

https://www.thedailydigger.com › 2020/02 › eid-investi...

by Spencer Walrath, Energy in Depth ... shedding light into the connections between this new media initiative and the climate litigation campaign.

REPORT: Trial Lawyers Are Shopping Around Cookie-Cutter ...

https://dailycaller.com › trial-lawyers-climate-lawsuits

The latest climate lawsuit inadvertently reveals trial lawyers behind them ... wrote Spencer Walrath with EID, which is funded by the Independent Petroleum ...

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Drilling Down on New Climate "News" Platform - EID Climate ...

https://eidclimate.org › drilling-down-on-new-climate-news-platform

January 29, 2020 | Spencer Walrath. Climate Liability News recently announced that its closing its doors and folding itself in with the Drilled podcast and Heated newsletter to launch a combined "news" platform, Drilled News. While Drilled News's website provides no information about its funders, nonprofit status, or founder, an ...

Activists Don't Succeed, but Try, Try ... - EID Climate

https://eidclimate.org › activists-dont-succeed-but-try-try-again-on-climate-attribution-science

December 19, 2019 | Spencer Walrath It's only been a few weeks since the last uncritical climate attribution story, but climate activists are still trying to keep it in the headlines. This time the Union of Concerned Scientists is out with a study claiming that half of all ocean acidification can be blamed on just 88 companies, specifically ...

Rockefellers Use New Front Group to Advance ... - EID Climate

https://eidclimate.org › rockefellers-use-new-front-group-to-advance-climate-liability-campaign

September 28, 2018 | Spencer Walrath A new website is wading into the global warming blame game, attempting to link severe weather to climate change. But an EID review shows that the researchers are not scientists, but rather PR professionals funded by the wealthy Rockefellers.

New EID Video/Digital Campaign Launches Ahead of Climate ...

https://eidclimate.org › new-eid-video-digital-campaign-launches-ahead-of-climate-panel-focused-on-boulder-climate-lawsuit

New EID Video/Digital Campaign Launches Ahead of Climate Panel Focused on Boulder Climate Lawsuit May 24, 2018 | By Spencer Walrath 0 12 Google + 0 0 A new Energy in Depth digital short launching today provides the facts and information on why the Boulder climate lawsuit is simply the wrong approach for Colorado.

EID Investigation Sheds Light on Activist-Driven Media ...

https://www.thedailydigger.com › 2020 › 02 › eid-investigation-sheds-light-on.html

by Spencer Walrath, Energy in Depth Earlier this week, EID released our investigation into the new Drilled News platform, shedding light into the connections between this new media initiative and the climate litigation campaign.

Two Years After Standing by Al Gore, New ... - EID Climate

https://eidclimate.org › two-years-standing-al-gore-new-york-ag-still-little-show-exxonknew-campaign

March 29, 2018 | Katie Brown and Spencer Walrath. Last year, EID observed how the infamous AGs United for Clean Power press conference on March 29, 2016, had generated nothing substantive one year later. It is now the two year anniversary, and the situation has not changed: the bluster and media hype is still just bluster and hype. ...

New York vs. ExxonMobil: Myth vs. Fact - EID Climate

https://eidclimate.org › new-york-vs-exxonmobil-myth-vs-fact

October 22, 2019 | Spencer Walrath After a nearly four-year investigation which included the review of millions of documents and dozens of hours of depositions and testimony, the New York Attorney General's (NYAG) lawsuit against ExxonMobil is set to begin on October 22 nd .

Exposed: Harvard Study Omitted Evidence to Allege ...

https://thepracticalenvironmentalist.com › 2018 › 02 › 02 › exposed-harvard-study-omitted-evidence-to-allege-exxonmobil-misled-public-on-climate-2

Here is Spencer Walrath's rebuttal of the Oreskes and Supran Study. Interestingly, the NY Times never ran a retraction or correction. ... EID's random sample of the company's relevant advertorials shows that the overwhelming majority - greater than 90 percent - affirm or otherwise strongly point to the fact that global warming is ...

Center for Climate Integrity (CCI ... - InfluenceWatch

https://www.influencewatch.org › non-profit › center-for-climate-integrity-cci

walrath, spencer. "Revealed: Foreign Billionaire Behind the Group Pushing American Cities to Sue Energy Producers." EID Climate - A Project of IPAA, January 8, 2020.

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