TILLERSON 2

5/17 see main for older info

see climate lawsuits

NO MERRI

KUSHNER SMEAR VIA NYPOST, SHADOW STATE DEPT BROIDY?

badish code

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extraction: rex: "we're in the depletion business"

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10 2020 FBI

acoSTA TOLD EPS IS ALLIED INTEL AGY; DERS AND EPS TALK --> MOSSAD WD CALL FOR DEBRIEF; EPS CLOSE TO BARAK AND TRAINED AS SPY UNDER HIM; BARAK THOT BB CRIM; EPS COOPEDTED MOSSAD AGENT;

DRUKOVA DAY ONE VENTURES STEAL TECH

CHABAD PUTIN JEW OLIG; RABBI SCHEERSOM; KSH STAKE IN CADRE NOT DISCL; JK MOVED RUSS $; CHABAD LAUNDER

CRAIG HOROWITZ ARTL 2004; KEN KURSON KNOWS;

KISSENGAR CHS KUSH INTRO TO CUI TUANAKAI CHIN AMB; ANBANG NEGOT 666 5TH AVE

M COHEN BEV HILL HSE UNDER MKT

RENDA REX TILLERSON NY POST SMEARS // STATE DEPT

LEON BLACK BWTR ARMS HU TRAFFICK; CEO APOLLO 50M TO EPS 184M LOAN TO JK // 666

ELLIOT BROIDY PLED LANDER; PLAYBOY MODEL; JOEL MOWBRAY --> JEW; REP ED ROYCE, WIFE LOBBYIST;

GAWKER DISINFO 2016? --> ZERO HEDGE

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kert WSJ inside exxon strat many docs in discovey finder 1988 frank sprow

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/exxon-climate-change-documents-e2e9e6af

"Inside Exxon’s Strategy to Downplay Climate Change" | SEJ

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no lnx

WSJ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Inside Exxon’s Strategy to Downplay Climate Change

Internal documents show what the oil giant said publicly was very different from how it approached the issue privately in the Tillerson era

By Christopher M. Matthews

and Collin Eaton

Sept. 14, 2023

2487 RESPONSES

Exxon Mobil issued its first public statement that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change in 2006, following years of denial. In public forums, the company argued that the risk of serious impact on the environment justified global action.

Yet behind closed doors, Exxon took a very different tack: Its executives strategized over how to diminish concerns about warming temperatures, and they sought to muddle scientific findings that might hurt its oil-and-gas business, according to internal Exxon documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and interviews with former executives.

Exxon’s public acceptance in 2006 of the risks posed by climate change was an early act of Rex Tillerson, an Exxon lifer who became CEO that year. Some viewed him as a moderating force who brought Exxon in line with the scientific consensus.

The documents reviewed by the Journal, which haven’t been previously reported, cast Tillerson’s decadelong tenure in a different light. They show that Tillerson, as well as some of Exxon’s board directors and other top executives, sought to cast doubt on the severity of climate change’s impacts. Exxon scientists supported research that questioned the findings of mainstream climate science, even after the company said it would stop funding think tanks and others that promoted climate-change denial.

Exxon is now a defendant in dozens of lawsuits around the U.S. that accuse it and other oil companies of deception over climate change and that aim to collect billions of dollars in damages. Prosecutors and attorneys involved in some of the cases are seeking some of the documents reviewed by the Journal, which were part of a previous investigation by New York’s attorney general but never made public.

One of the lawsuits is from Hawaii’s Maui County, where wildfires killed more than 100 people in August. The lawsuit, filed in 2020, alleged the island faced increased climate-related risks, including more dangerous wildfires, caused by fossil-fuel companies. Some of the lawsuits may go to trial as soon as next year.

:{“I know how this information looks—when taken out of context, it seems bad,” Exxon CEO Darren Woods said in response to the Journal’s inquiry about the documents. “But having worked with some of these colleagues earlier in my career, I have the benefit of knowing they are people of good intent. None of these old emails and notes matter though. All that does is that we’re building an entire business dedicated to reducing emissions—both our own and others—and spending billions of dollars on solutions that have a real, sustainable impact.”}:

Under Woods, who became CEO in 2017, Exxon has committed to spend $17 billion over five years on emissions-reducing technologies. Exxon didn’t address detailed questions sent by the Journal.

WHAT’S NEWS

Exclusive: Exxon’s Strategy to Downplay Climate Change

Tillerson declined to comment through a representative.

Exxon turned millions of pages of documents over to the New York attorney general during that office’s yearslong investigation, announced in 2015, into whether the company misled investors about the impact of climate regulation on its business. The Journal reviewed summaries of the documents that Exxon’s lawyers had determined were the most significant. After the attorney general narrowed the focus of the case, the documents weren’t made public.

The documents summarize emails between top executives, board meetings and Tillerson’s edits of speeches, among other things.

After a nearly three-week trial in 2019, Justice Barry Ostrager of the New York State Supreme Court ruled the New York attorney general failed to prove its case.

“Nothing in this opinion is intended to absolve Exxon Mobil from responsibility for contributing to climate change,” Ostrager wrote.

Throughout Tillerson’s tenure between 2006 and 2016, Exxon executives in their internal communications attempted to push back against the notion that humans needed to curtail oil and gas use to help the planet—despite the company’s public statements that action was needed.

In 2012, after the pre-eminent scientific authority on climate change warned of global calamity if carbon emissions continued unabated, Tillerson disagreed and directed Exxon researchers to “influence” the group.

As pressure mounted to stop drilling in the Arctic due to rapid glacial melting and other environmental impacts, Exxon fretted about a key project in Russia’s far north and worked to “de-couple climate change and the Arctic.”

July 2013

Exxon’s deal to explore the Arctic with Russia’s Rosneft came amid

growing public concern about melting polar ice caps. In an email discussion

with other executives about how to protect the project, a corporate issues

adviser wrote:

“

As this shapes up, part of the moral argument for leaving the Arctic alone

will be based on this notion that it is fundamentally unjust for the people

who prompted the ice melt to then profit from development. It’s one reason

I think we will need to push back hard- albeit in a nuanced way- against this

notion that the whole area is ‘pristine’ and untouched by the hand of man.”

“The general perception is that Tillerson was softer and stopped funding the bad guys” that were espousing climate change denial, said Lee Wasserman, the director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, a charity that partly focuses on environmental issues. “This is the first X-ray into Tillerson’s head and shows he wanted to throw climate mitigation off the rails. It’s obituary-changing.”

The fund has issued grants financing litigation and other support for around two dozen cases against Exxon, whose predecessor, Standard Oil, was founded by family patriarch John D. Rockefeller. The fund has invested millions of dollars in a broader campaign against big oil companies.

Seminal warning

A study published earlier this year in the journal Science determined Exxon’s climate modelers had predicted warming temperatures with precision since the 1970s, in line with the scientific consensus. The study was funded, in part, by a grant from the Rockefeller Family Fund.

In the summer of 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen issued what’s now seen as a seminal warning on climate change when he testified before Congress that Earth was warming dangerously and humans were causing it.

Frank Sprow, then Exxon’s head of corporate research, sent a memo to colleagues a few months later articulating what would become a central pillar of Exxon’s strategy.

“If a worldwide consensus emerges that action is needed to mitigate against Greenhouse gas effects, substantial negative impacts on Exxon could occur,” wrote Sprow. “Any additional R&D efforts within Corporate Research on Greenhouse should have two primary purposes: 1. Protect the value of our resources (oil, gas, coal). 2. Preserve Exxon’s business options.”

Sprow’s memo was adopted by Exxon as policy, he said in a recent interview.

Exxon stopped most internal climate research, instead funding it through university and research organizations, Sprow said. Exxon’s corporate research division was redirected from broader scientific study to focus on “science to support our business.”

Sprow said he and former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond acknowledged the climate was changing but questioned to what extent human activity was causing it and how serious and rapid the impacts would be. The January study in Science said that Exxon’s climate modelers mostly attributed the changes to humans.

Martin Hoffert, who worked as a consultant to Exxon on climate science in the 1980s, said Sprow’s memo sent another message: “It’s an oblique way of saying we’re in the oil business and we’re not going to get out of the oil business, and we’ll do everything we can to make money on the oil business.”

By the time Tillerson became CEO in 2006, Exxon’s positions on climate change had become a public-relations nightmare, according to Sprow, who retired from the company in 2005.

Public shift

Exxon’s public shift on climate change came after the Royal Society, a British scientific academy, criticized the company for spreading “inaccurate and misleading” views on climate science in 2006. Exxon responded in a letter that it recognized “the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere poses risks that may prove significant for society and ecosystems.”

An Eagle Scout and a civil engineer by training, Tillerson spent his entire career at Exxon before becoming CEO in 2006. He left in 2017 to become then-President Trump’s Secretary of State.

His views on climate change were influenced by the previous generation of Exxon executives, said former company executives who worked with him. During his tenure, Tillerson took little action to curb the company’s emissions and instead believed the onus was on governments to push companies to address climate change, they said.

In 2011, scientists working for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, convened by the United Nations, warned of global calamity if carbon emissions caused temperatures to rise more than 4 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2100, its worst-case scenario.

Tillerson told a top Exxon climate researcher the scenario was “not credible,” the documents show. Tillerson was “dissatisfied with media coverage,” the researcher, Haroon Kheshgi, told colleagues in a 2012 email about the findings. Further, Tillerson wanted to engage with IPCC “to influence [the group], in addition to gathering info.”

Chris Field was the co-chair of an IPCC working group during Tillerson’s tenure at Exxon. He rejected Tillerson’s criticism that the worst-case scenario laid out by the group wasn’t credible. Though emissions reductions are preventing the worst case, Field said, the science has held up over time.

“I’m honestly flattered that he thought IPCC was consequential enough to want to influence it,” said Field, who is now director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. He added that the IPCC process is structured to prevent undue influence from individual businesses or other entities and that the Exxon scientists he’d dealt with were professional.

While Tillerson and others played down the risks posed by climate change, Exxon’s scientists were themselves modeling alarming increases in carbon emissions without dramatic reductions in fossil-fuel consumption.

“It’s almost reluctantly that we address C02 emissions,” Scott Nauman, a corporate planning manager, wrote in a January 2009 email as the company was preparing its annual energy outlook. “It is not a positive story. Global emissions continue to rise throughout the outlook timeframe – that’s clearly a cause for concern.”

Exxon routinely pushed back against the idea that dramatic curtailment of fossil-fuel consumption was necessary. Instead, it suggested that technological solutions, including making cars and other machines more efficient, were the most effective measure to halt global warming. Fossil fuels are responsible for more than 75% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IPCC.

Before giving a speech at an event hosted by Stanford University’s Global Climate & Energy Project in February 2009, Tillerson appeared to make edits to avoid embracing positions that would hurt Exxon’s business.

In one part of the draft speech he crossed out “oil, natural gas and coal will not meet all of the world’s needs to the year 2030.” Later, he added, “the most cost effective steps we can take to address this energy and environmental challenge is to extend our energy efficiency gains.”

Weeks earlier, Nauman had concluded in his January email that emissions would increase through 2030 despite such gains.

“We would like them to be lower, but given the state of technology, given the need for energy, given the practical choices for energy, emissions rise despite aggressive efficiency gains,” Nauman wrote.

‘Skeptic arguments’

In 2008, Exxon announced it would stop funding think tanks and other groups that questioned climate science, saying their positions “could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner.”

Exxon researchers continued to support scientific research that cast doubt on climate science and its impacts, documents show.

Later in 2008, Gene Tunison, a manager of global regulatory affairs and research planning, said Exxon should direct a scientist to help the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s influential lobbying group, write a paper about climate science uncertainty.

“I support [Exxon] co-authoring a paper on uncertainty in measuring GHGs,” Tunison wrote in an email.

May 2012

Exxon researchers met regularly about developments in climate science

but continued to discuss doubts about the scientific consensus. Ahead of

a meeting dubbed ‘Friday climate overview’ among Exxon’s top climate

scientists, one researcher said:

“Under ‘some skeptic arguments disproven’ - my question is, are there any

‘skeptic’ arguments that we consider to be not yet disproven, or credible

and worthy of further investigation?”

Tillerson also pushed back against some of the dire consequences of rising temperatures predicted by climate scientists. After a 2011 meeting, Tillerson’s chief of staff, William Colton, emailed colleagues about the CEO’s feedback on a draft disclosure about carbon emissions. Tillerson wanted the words “weather extremes and storms” deleted.

“His view was that even mentioning a possible connection between climate change and weather was possibly giving the notion more credibility than he would like,” Colton wrote.

During a 2012 board meeting about “Developments in Climate Science and Policy,” Exxon board member Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said there was “still uncertainty in predicting future climate changes and impacts.”

“Money and effort spent on climate change is misplaced,” said Brabeck-Letmathe, the former CEO of Nestlé.

In December 2015, Exxon publicly stated its support of the just-signed Paris climate agreement, a nonbinding United Nations treaty that commits countries to work to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Climate scientists have warned that if Earth warms more than 2 degrees it could cross irreversible climate tipping points. During his Senate confirmation hearing to become Secretary of State in 2017, Tillerson said he supported staying in the agreement.

Months before the treaty was signed, Tillerson had expressed skepticism about its aims.

Following a presentation on climate science to Exxon’s board of directors in April 2015, Tillerson called the 2 degrees target “something magical,” according to a summary of the meeting.

“Who is to say 2.5 is not good enough,” said Tillerson, noting that it was “very expensive” to cut the emissions needed to meet such a target.

June 2015

Tillerson received regular updates on climate science from Exxon’s chief

researchers and in some instances asked about uncertainty in

climate-change modeling. An Exxon executive wrote Kheshgi:

“Rex called this afternoon with a couple of pretty detailed questions on

climate science: [1] Do climate scientists understand and are they able to

quantify the radiative forcing/GHG/climate impacts of events like

volcanos and forest fires. If so, how and how well? Is there differentiation

between major events like Mt Pinatubo and other much smaller events?

[2] Does the climate modeling community include these events and

effects in their climate models and projections of future temperatures and

impacts? If so, how and how well? Are these types of events/impacts a

major or minor source of uncertainty?”

“When people like Tillerson argue that 2 degrees is magical, it’s in the context of how you try,” said Field, the former IPCC co-chair. “Two degrees can be affordable with the right costs and benefits globally, even if it is not the right costs and benefits for Exxon.”

Last week, the United Nations warned countries are far from meeting the Paris agreement’s goals. Exxon said in August that the world isn’t currently on track to reach the targets of the agreement, which it continues to support publicly.

Shortly after replacing Tillerson in 2017, Darren Woods spread the word that he was in search of transformative new ideas. A plan to invest in offshore wind projects made its way to the most senior levels of the company, according to people familiar with the proposal. Karen Hughes, a former top official in the George W. Bush administration and an adviser to Exxon, said she counseled that investing in renewable energy would be good for the environment and improve the company’s reputation.

To date, Woods hasn’t invested in renewable energy, arguing it’s a low-return business outside Exxon’s skill set. Instead the company has vowed to spend about $3.4 billion a year on average through 2027 curbing its emissions and helping other companies do the same, and investing in areas including carbon capture, biofuels and lithium mining. It also recently struck a deal to buy Denbury, which operates a large network of pipelines that move carbon dioxide, for about $5 billion.

Exxon currently plans to spend as much as $25 billion a year in capital expenditures through 2027, mostly on oil and gas.

Write to Christopher M. Matthews at christopher.matthews@wsj.com and Collin Eaton at collin.eaton@wsj.com

: 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8}:

Appeared in the September 15, 2023, print edition as 'Inside Exxon’s Climate Two-Step'.

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https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/12/could_massive_russian_oil_deal_with

we continue our conversation about ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, whom Donald Trump is expected to nominate for secretary of state. Speaking on “Face the Nation” Sunday, Sen. John McCain said Tillerson should be given a fair hearing but reiterated his concerns about Tillerson’s ties with Putin. One of the enormous deals that Vladimir Putin and Rex Tillerson worked on was a $500 billion oil exploration partnership between Exxon and the Russian government’s oil company, Rosneft.The Obama administration blocked the deal when it imposed sanctions against Russia for its intervention in the Ukraine. In a recent column for ThinkProgress titled “Trump, Putin, and ExxonMobil team up to destroy the planet,” Joe Romm, founding editor of Climate Progress, writes, “This deal could explain why Putin appears to have interfered in U.S. elections in favor of a Trump victory.” Romm goes on to say, “if the sanctions are lifted—something a new Secretary of State could help make happen—it would pay off big time for Exxon. … Imagine … if the oil giant is freed to produce and sell oil on the staggering 63.7 million acres of Russian land it leases, which is over 5 times the amount of land it leases in this country. Happy days are here again, for Exxon.”

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation about ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who Donald Trump is expected to nominate for secretary of state. Speaking on Face the Nation Sunday, Senator John McCain said Tillerson should be given a fair hearing, but reiterated his concerns about Tillerson’s ties to Vladimir Putin.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Maybe those ties are strictly commercial and got to do with his business in the oil business. Fine. But we’ll give him a fair hearing. But is it a matter of concern? Certainly, it should be a matter of concern. But I’m sure, in a bipartisan way, he’ll get a fair hearing. … It’s a matter of concern to me that he has such a close personal relationship with Vladimir Putin—and, obviously, they’ve done enormous deals together—that that would color his approach to Vladimir Putin and the Russian threat.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the enormous deals that Vladimir Putin and Rex Tillerson worked on was a $500 billion oil exploration partnership between Exxon and the Russian government’s oil company, Rosneft. The Obama administration blocked the deal when it imposed sanctions against Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. In a recent column for ThinkProgress headlined “Trump, Putin, and ExxonMobil team up to destroy the planet,” Joe Romm, founding editor of Climate Progress, writes, “This deal could explain why Putin appears to have interfered in U.S. elections in favor of a Trump victory.” Romm goes on to say, “if the sanctions are lifted — something a new Secretary of State could help make happen — it would pay off big time for Exxon. … Imagine … if the oil giant is freed to produce and sell oil on the staggering 63.7 million acres of Russian land it leases, which is over 5 times the amount of land it leases in this country. Happy days are here again, for Exxon,” Joe Romm writes.

Well, for more, we are joined by Joe Romm in Washington, D.C., who also is chief science adviser for Years of Living Dangerously. So, Joe Romm, for people who have no idea what this is about, this Rosneft deal and the sanctions and what it would mean if they’re lifted, please lay it out for us.

JOE ROMM: Sure. Well, Rosneft is the state oil company for Russia, and, under Putin, it has been acquiring more and more power and control over the oil industry. And it is now, you know, I believe, the world’s largest oil entity in the world. ExxonMobil is the world’s largest, you know, privately held oil company in the world. And, you know, we’re entering a period where it’s harder and harder to find oil. And as I write in Climate Progress, you know, ExxonMobil’s prospects for finding easy-to-find oil in this market were pretty dim, until this deal was struck between Tillerson and Putin, basically. And this deal would have created a $500 billion joint effort, you know, the biggest oil deal ever. It’s, you know, $500 billion. We’re talking half a trillion dollars. It’s a staggering amount of money. It was a deal that was perhaps going to ensure the future of a stream of oil for Exxon for decades to come, even, of course, as the world needs to get off of oil. For Putin, you know, this is critical revenue and critical outside investment, because, particularly now, in this era of low oil prices, that seriously hurts Putin. So this was considered to be a game changer. Rachel Maddow said, you know, this was a deal that was considered it might change the historical trajectory of Russia. Now, you know, Putin then invaded Crimea and interfered with Ukraine. As a result, the United States and most other civilized countries put in place sanctions. Those sanctions, in 2014, killed this deal.

And, you know, as I write in the piece, the question of—the intelligence community now says that Russia interfered in the election on behalf of Putin, that through leaks, through hacking private email accounts and releasing them—drip, drip, drip—and also we have reason to believe they’re one of the major promoters, disseminators of fake news. So, you know, one can understand the motivation. You know, some people said, “Hey, Putin has enough motivation just to, you know, cast doubt on the U.S. election.” But $500 billion, that is a very big motivation to mess up the U.S. election. So, this—

AMY GOODMAN: So—

JOE ROMM: Yeah?

AMY GOODMAN: So explain what could happen if Tillerson did become secretary of state.

JOE ROMM: Well, if Tillerson becomes secretary of state—and I also want to say the man has no qualifications to be secretary of state. It just deserves to be said. He’s worked for ExxonMobil his entire life. And I know we’ve entered this realm where we just elected Donald Trump president, who is unqualified, and he’s been naming a series of people who are unqualified for their job, but it just needs to be said. So, Tillerson has no qualifications for his job. And he—the deal that he was negotiating with Putin two years ago won him the highest order that Russia gives to a foreign citizen. So, he and Putin are very, very close. And as secretary of state, of course, he is our lead negotiator. He is the president’s top representative to every foreign government in the world. So here’s the signal it sends to the rest of the world: All that matters to the United States is oil and a friendly relationship with Putin. Now, you know, this is a totally, totally compromised secretary of state. It is absurd. In any sane, rational world, you know, this would just be round-the-clock pillory.

AMY GOODMAN: How could Tillerson decide about, for example, lifting the sanctions? What role would the secretary of state play, if he gets that job?

JOE ROMM: Well, so, let’s look at the sanctions from two different—there’s the U.S. sanctions, which the Obama can pretty much—I mean, which a President Trump can pretty much lift most of, himself. But then there’s all the other countries who have sanctions. And in order to make an economic deal between Exxon and Rosneft, Russia, work, you’re going to need not just allowing U.S. investment in the country, you’re going to have to allow Russia, you know, to make deals and sell oil with every other country. So, as secretary of state, he can simply make it his top priority to use the full leverage of the United States, in every deal, to benefit the oil industry, to benefit the U.S. oil industry, to benefit Rosneft, to benefit Putin. You know, it basically would be turning the U.S. State Department and the U.S. executive branch into what Russia is—a kleptocracy run by Putin and his gang to extract money and enrich themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Joe Romm, what about his own wealth? What about Rex Tillerson’s own wealth? He is the current CEO of Exxon. If he retires and becomes secretary of state, still his money is tied up in Exxon, in what happens to Exxon, what the secretary—what the State Department and other government agencies, how they relate to Exxon.

JOE ROMM: Yes. And he would presumably divest. He would presumably have to sell off, you know, his 100-plus million dollars’ worth of shares of ExxonMobil, and because of the way the law is written, he can do that tax-free. But I think it’s important to say that, you know, someone who has worked his life, all his life, at ExxonMobil, all the way up to the top of the company, is hardly going to be able to separate his interests and the interests of all of his close personal friends and family simply by divesting himself of the stock. He is ExxonMobil. And you should just see that on his forehead whenever you look at him.

AMY GOODMAN: Carroll Muffett, we just have a minute, but you’re seeing one agency head after another, one Cabinet member named after another, related to Exxon, in fact.

CARROLL MUFFETT: Yes. If you look at Jeff Sessions, he intervened in the investigations—

AMY GOODMAN: The attorney general nominee.

CARROLL MUFFETT: —of Exxon. If you look at Scott Pruitt, the nominee for EPA, he intervened in the investigation of Exxon by other state attorneys general. Then you add—you add Rex Tillerson. And on climate change, what we’re looking at is government of Exxon, by Exxon and for Exxon. But it’s really important to recognize that this is emblematic of a broader trend that we’re seeing in Trump’s nominations, where, in one agency after another, he has put people in charge of agencies that are patently hostile to both the agency itself and to the people and places those agencies are designed to protect. It’s looking to move us a hundred years backward in time and undo a hundred years of environmental and social progress.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Bill McKibben, one of his transition team representatives said today on one of the talk shows that this is a man who is very accomplished in business, so he’ll be reviewing the budget of the State Department and, you know, who should be there and who shouldn’t. We hear about the Department of Energy. Donald Trump just said he will be deciding very soon, after becoming president, what to do about the Dakota Access pipeline, which the Obama administration has said no to granting the final permit to, and the Keystone XL, which your group, 350.org, and so many others fought so hard, until Obama, the—President Obama said no to the Keystone XL. Finally, what does this mean, and how is 350.org organizing?

BILL McKIBBEN: 2016 is the hottest year in human history. And we’re going to have to make 2017 as politically hot as it is humanly possible to do. If people have been keeping their powder dry, waiting to come out and engage in peaceful protest, well, this is the moment. Everything is at risk, both in terms of our democracy and our planet. And so, we will organize at 350, just as people will organize all over the country. And we’ll do it not with complete confidence that we’re going to win; we’ll do it because we have to do it. And we will see what happens. This is one of those hinge moments in human history, and, actually, in planetary history, too. I’m not sure there’s never been one quite like it, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to go—end with a clip from Fox News this Sunday, Donald Trump interviewed by Chris Wallace on the pipeline.

CHRIS WALLACE: Let me ask you a couple of specific questions. Will you still pull out of the Paris climate agreement, which has been signed by more than a hundred countries to reduce carbon emissions? Will you restart the Dakota Access pipeline, which the Army just stopped?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: OK, let me not answer the Dakota, because perhaps that will be solved by the time I get there, so I don’t have to create enemies on one side or the other. But I will tell you, when I get to office, if it’s not solved, I’ll have it solved very quickly.

CHRIS WALLACE: Meaning you’re going to start it.

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: I’m not saying anything. I just say something will happen, and it’ll be quick. I think it’s very unfair. So, it’ll start, one way or the other.

CHRIS WALLACE: And Paris?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: You’ll have a decision pretty quickly. And also the Keystone pipeline, you’re going to have a decision fairly quickly. And you’ll see that. Now, Paris, I’m studying. I do say this: I don’t want that agreement to put us at a competitive disadvantage with other countries. And as you know, there are different times and different time limits on that agreement. I don’t want that to give China or other countries signing agreements an advantage over us.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Donald Trump yesterday on Fox News. We will wrap up there. And in our next segment, we’ll look back at the investigation by the Los Angeles Times and InsideClimate News into how ExxonMobil covered up its own knowledge of human-induced climate change. I want to thank Joe Romm of Climate Progress, Carroll Muffett of the Center for International Environmental Law and Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. Stay with us.

Next story from this daily show

Inside Exxon’s Great Climate Cover-Up: From Early Climate Change Researcher to Epic Climate Denier

qz jul 2017 no lnx bad code

https://qz.com/1034589/exxonmobil-made-illegal-deals-with-russia-when-secretary-of-state-rex-tillerson-ran-the-company

when Rex Tillerson ran ExxonMobil, he made his name making deals in Russia, which in turn made Donald Trump’s decision to appoint him as secretary of State contentious. Skepticism about Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian state and its connections to the highest levels of the Trump administration dogged his confirmation hearings.

Now, it turns out at least some of those Russia deals made while he was CEO broke US law. The sanctions cops at the US Treasury Department have levied a fine of $2 million (pdf) on ExxonMobil for violating sanctions put in place to punish Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

That fine is, of course, a tiny drop in the ocean of Exxon’s petroleum profits of $7.8 billion last year. The violations hinge on some awkward timing. The US issued an executive order in March 2014, forbidding “the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services” from someone on the sanctions list. Igor Sechin, a Putin crony who earned the moniker “Darth Vader” for his forbidding style, was added to that list in April. In May, ExxonMobil signed a series of agreements with Sechin, who was acting in his capacity as the president of Rosneft, the Russian state oil firm.

This was a no-no. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforces sanctions, called the deal an “egregious case” that showed “reckless disregard” for US sanctions.

In a statement issued today, Exxon said the action is “fundamentally unfair,” and that it would file a legal challenge to overturn OFAC’s judgement.

Exxon said that the sanctions were aimed at Sechin’s personal wealth, not at Rosneft; it notes that a British oil company’s American CEO was allowed to attend board meetings with Sechin and that White House officials described the sanctions as an effort to target individuals, not companies. OFAC, on the other hand, said in its statement that it doesn’t recognize “an exception or carve-out for the professional conduct of designated or blocked persons,” and that the only thing that matters is the letter of the law.

OFAC also noted that “ExxonMobil’s senior-most executives knew of Sechin’s status as [a sanctioned individual] when they dealt in the blocked services of Sechin.” ExxonMobil’s senior-most executive at that time was Tillerson.

The next month, Tillerson was asked about sanctions by the Associated Press and said “there has been no impact on any of our business activities in Russia to this point, nor has there been any discernible impact on the relationship. The organizations continue to work business as usual.”

Rosneft was crucial to Exxon.In 2011, Exxon had begun working with the Russian firm in a $600 million deal to exploit Russian shale oil reserves. That represented an important gain in Exxon’s long-running battle to replenish its oil reserves, the key to the long-term survival of its business. The 2014 sanctions were a big obstacle to its success.

Three years later, during his confirmation hearing, Tillerson told senators that “to my knowledge, Exxon never directly lobbied against sanctions.” Politifact rated this statement “mostly false,” since Exxon had in fact paid a lobby group to lobby on the issue and Tillerson had spoken publicly of making Exxon’s opposition to sanctions known “at the highest levels.”

= https://theintercept.com/2019/10/31/exxon-mobil-massachusetts-climate-change-lawsuit-greenwashing/ ;= https://theintercept.com/2019/11/12/climate-exxon-mobil-new-york-court/ ;...THE NEW YORK State Supreme Court building is a granite-faced behemoth with wide steps, towering columns, and an ornate rotunda. It is a place where critical legal battles have been fought for nearly a century. Yet, as proceedings began in a modest second-floor courtroom on a gray, unseasonably warm afternoon late last month, the storied building somehow felt outmatched by the gravity of the matter at hand.

Two legal teams were crammed shoulder to shoulder around wooden tables. Spectators and curious out-of-state attorneys filled the benches behind them. Reporters hunched over their laptops. A tattooed court officer strolled the periphery of the room looking for rule-breakers. If you squinted, it could be any of the many high-profile trials that come through New York City and not — as many hope it will be — a historic test of whether the industry responsible for setting humanity on a path to immolation can be held to account before it’s too late.

“The failure of the international community to strongly grapple with climate change and the rollbacks under the Trump administration are leaving advocates of strong climate action desperate for whatever tools they can use.”

The case was the People of the State of New York v. Exxon Mobil Corp., which concluded last week. It is part of a wave of litigation directed at the titans of the fossil fuel industry making its way through courts across the country. “It’s only the second climate-change case ever to go to trial in the United States,”

rex

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08112019/exxon-trial-closing-arguments-climate-investor-fraud-new-york-ostrager

1119

Tillerson Takes the Stand, Denying Exxon Misled Investors About Climate Risk

BY: NICHOLAS KUSNETZ

The former Exxon CEO, once Trump’s secretary of state, defended practices he implemented while running the oil company.

kushner rogue for policy

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/tillerson-tells-congress-jared-kushner-went-behind-my-back

fired by tweet

Rexit in the works for a while, since "idiot" not retracted?

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-private-empire-20170127-story.html

https://www.ecowatch.com/keystone-xl-approval-2538558599.html

Inside the Trump Admin's Fight to Keep the Keystone XL Approval Process Secret

By Steve Horn

At a Feb. 21 hearing, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Trump administration must either fork over documents showing how the U.S. Department of State reversed an earlier decision and ultimately came to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, or else provide a substantial legal reason for continuing to withhold them. The federal government has an order to deliver the goods, one way or the other, by March 21.

DeSmog has reviewed the court evidence from the environmental groups bringing the case, records which help illuminate their argument that the government is, in fact, withholding such documents. The judge will decide if those documents, legally, should be made public.

The case, which began in March 2017, pits the Indigenous Environmental Network and the North Coast River Alliance against the State Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of interior and TransCanada, the owner of Keystone XL. During his first week in office, Donald Trump signed a memorandum calling for the State Department to perform an expedited 60-day permit review of the pipeline. Two months later, the State Department gave Keystone XL the permit it needed to cross the U.S.-Canada border.

Under the Obama administration, the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Alberta's tar sands, underwent a years-long environmental review process which culminated in President Barack Obama nixing it in November 2015. For the better part of the past decade, the pipeline has served as a central mobilizing force for the environmental movement.

Dispute Over Records

At the center of this case is a dispute over the administrative records of federal agencies, which in other lawsuits are routinely made public as part of the pre-trial process.

Generally, releasing such documents gives a snapshot of the full deliberative process behind federal agencies' decisions. DeSmog, in fact, published a story on such documents in 2015 related to a different tar sands pipeline project, which involved Enbridge's Alberta Clipper (also known as Line 67), part of a broader pipeline system DeSmog calls the "Keystone XLClone."

In the TransCanada case, the State Department has argued for keeping these pre-trial records sealed while the plaintiffs, the environmental groups, have argued they should be made public. These documents, which might include emails and memos, would offer the plaintiffs and the general public an idea of how the Trump administration decided to approve the Keystone XL.

The plaintiffs say that not all of those records have been turned over.

"Federal Defendants have wrongly omitted an unknown number of emails and other internal communications considered by the agencies during their review of the Keystone XL pipeline," the plaintiffs in the case argued in court documents on Jan. 8.

In an affidavit exhibited as part of that filing, Cecilia Segal, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, cited a Dec. 19 phone call she had with the federal defendants, in which they said that agency emails and other records do not need to be disclosed as part of the case.

Another letter exhibited as part of the Jan. 8 filing, written on Nov. 30 by attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity, further complained that the documents already handed over were not adequately comprehensive or organized in a manner useful for the case. And many documents, they allege, seem to be missing entirely and without explanation.

"We are concerned that both the State Department and Service have withheld records as privileged without identifying and certifying them on a privilege log," wrote the attorneys.

Why read a 5-year-old book about ExxonMobil now? Two words: Rex Tillerson

By SARAH CHAYES

JAN 27, 2017 |

Why read a 5-year-old book about ExxonMobil now? Two words: Rex Tillerson

Rex Tillerson, nominee for Secretary of State, testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations committee. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

If you want a deeper understanding of what has been inaugurated in Washington, read Steve Coll's "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power." Rarely has a book been so profoundly and presciently relevant to events that would take place five years after its publication.

It is not just a book about a company — incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s gargantuan, profit-spawning alma mater. It is the portrait of an ethos. And as the pattern of Cabinet appointees makes plain, this ethos has just been ushered out from behind any vestige of discretion to rule unabashed over the executive branch of our government.

Full disclosure: I know and like Steve Coll. I hosted him in Kandahar, Afghanistan, when he was working on a January 2012 New Yorker article. But we have scarcely intersected since, and my judgment is not contaminated: I would not recommend his Pulitzer Prize-winning but wordy "Ghost Wars," for example. "Private Empire" is a much better book.

Weighing in at more than 700 pages, it is wordy too. Readers may want to dip in and out of its various narrative threads, as their particular issues or regions of interest suggest — be it climate change, sea-soiling spills, human rights, the fate of specific countries such as Chad or Venezuela, or the cynicism of corporate influence strategies.

Through the aggregation of these strands, Coll's trademark marriage of encyclopedic research and thriller writer's style and construction delivers a clear and unimpeachably substantiated picture. It is a picture of relentless focus on shareholder return above any other consideration, of a cult-like corporate culture characterized by secrecy, rigid conformity and aggressive exploitation of dominant positions, alongside a consistent pattern of public deception.

Media coverage and Tillerson's confirmation hearings have focused heavily on his relationship with Russia and touched on his attitude toward human rights and potential conflicts of interest when dealing with countries where ExxonMobil operates. But "Private Empire" reveals an underlying mindset that in my view has even more profound implications for his fitness to serve the nation.

One of the most telling passages comes early, in a description of the culture of "rule books and fear-inspiring management techniques" at Exxon. "Analogous to natural selection," writes Coll, a merciless grading system "hardened Exxon's culture and wrote the corporation's DNA." A point would come in potential managers' careers "when they either committed to Exxon or left. Those who stayed did not find the … system ironic or extreme; they liked it. … Restless free thinkers and habitual dissenters who accidentally got hired (often as scientists) tended to decide quickly that they would be happier elsewhere. The result was a corporation led in its upper management ranks by … true believers."

Answering senators' questions, Tillerson dwelled on his "pivot" away from this world — away from all he had striven to assimilate and become since the age of 23 — assuring them that "if confirmed to be secretary of State, [I] will have one mission only, and that is to represent the interests of the American people." But 41 years in the environment Coll describes is not dispensed with overnight.

"The ultimate measure (and the chief purpose)" of this culture, writes Coll, "was Exxon's financial performance." This sounds self-evident. But the ExxonMobil story encapsulates a profound cultural shift that has swept much of the world beginning in the 1980s: the triumph of money over almost all other measures of social value and standing. I spent two weeks in Nigeria in 2015 asking people if the meaning of money had changed in their lifetimes. The answers were emphatic (yes), articulate and often surprising in their details. Americans have responded with equal fervency. The growing fixation is one of the most significant trends of the last several decades. And ExxonMobil is a chief exemplar. At issue here, as Coll makes clear, is not the profit motive. It is profit as the exclusive motive in the face of trade-offs of broader and broader import.

To stay competitive in this race with no finish line — for “financial performance,” shareholder value, zeroes in bank accounts — elites have been writing rules (or ensuring their selective enforcement) in their own favor. “Private Empire” documents countless examples, including Exxon’s unilateral decision to ignore SEC regulations on how oil holdings should be counted, its bombardment of government scientists with Freedom of Information Act requests while designing protections for its own information “far more severe than anything [one executive had] seen while holding a top secret clearance.”

An ExxonMobil pipeline through Cameroon in West Africa in 2003

Compounding the "financial performance" incentive is the way ExxonMobil is valued. It's not enough for the company's success to sell fossil fuels and petrochemicals and make money. Coll charts how Exxon's entire corporate strategy is shaped by the need to gain equity control over, or "book," new reserves to replace oil it has produced in a given year. For, unless the company opted to expand into other activities or energy sources — which ExxonMobil has declined to do — failure to replace reserves would guarantee an eventual end to the company. And who would buy shares in a doomed company?

The obsessive push to beat its competitors in replacing reserves flies in the face of many realities pertaining to the outside world— a place with which Tillerson is relatively unacquainted, having never lived abroad, as Coll notes. The first, of course, is climate change. If ExxonMobil must keep finding, extracting and selling oil ad infinitum, then no climate concerns can be brooked.

Coll documents the company's consistent efforts to block international climate agreements and also its deceitful campaign to debunk science while predicating its own planning on that very science.

(As head of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Coll more recently created the Energy and Environmental Reporting Project, which, in partnership with the L.A. Times, ran a series of stories expanding on the book, unearthing internal documents that showed what the company knew about climate change as far back as the 1980s. On Jan. 12, in one of the investigations resulting from that L.A. Times reporting on the topic, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge ordered ExxonMobil to surrender documents it had sought to withhold.)

Exxon's attitude is similar to that of Goldman Sachs, which in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis bet against the very securities it was selling its customers.

It is unwise, in this context, to credit Tillerson's belated conversion to the reality of global warming — and even his past support for a carbon tax. "Private Empire" argues convincingly that the shift was a public relations calculation aimed at deflecting criticism without deviating from the overall aim of ensuring governments "lack the political will to … force any big shift away from oil." Indeed, with more urgency since the conclusion of the Paris climate accord, the company's survival depended on a Trump victory in November. But the manifestly suicidal basis to this entire business model raises questions about the analytical acumen of those who cleave to it.

Exxon's need to find replacement reserves has driven the search for oil ever farther and deeper, and in more dangerous locations. The inevitable consequence is spills that devastate irreplaceable natural treasures and human livelihoods, and an exacerbation of the "resource curse" in rich, tragically afflicted developing countries like Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria, where corrupt officials gorge on oil money while much of the population endures crippling poverty. Time and time again, Coll illustrates that ExxonMobil's instinctive response was to deceive the public about the reality of these consequences.

The picture that emerges from "Private Empire" is of a company and its senior management bereft of the most elementary concept of the public interest or honor's dictate to take responsibility for the consequences of one's actions. Coll depicts a company arrogantly conscious of its own sovereignty — as against that of the United States. With the appointment of this company's CEO, and so many others of his ilk, in the name of an anti-corruption campaign, what we are witnessing is the outright acquisition of our government by what can only be described as a kleptocratic cartel.

Sarah Chayes, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, is author of "Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security," which won the 2016 L.A. Times Book Prize, and with Sarah Peck, of "The Oil Curse: A Remedial Role for the Oil Industry."

"Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power"

trump says we are renegot paris but....

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30082017/us-eliminating-its-arctic-and-climate-envoys-what-does-tell-our-allies

todd sterm BO]

As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson eliminates or shifts dozens of high-level diplomatic positions within the State Department—including the special envoys for climate change and the Arctic— those who have spent careers on these issues worry about the message being sent to the international community.

"On the appearance side, I think it definitely will be read by other governments as downgrading our interests," said Brooks Yeager, who was the deputy secretary for environment at the end of the Clinton administration. "At least in appearance, we're not devoting the same level of attention as other governments."

In a letter sent to Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) this week, Tillerson identified 36 special envoy positions that he plans to abolish. "I believe that the Department will be able to better execute its mission by integrating certain envoys and special representative offices within the regional and functional bureaus, and eliminating those that have accomplished or outlived their original purpose," Tillerson wrote.

The move is in step with the continued shrinking of the federal government under President Donald Trump, where an exodus of Obama staffers, a hiring freeze and a lack of political appointments has left the State Department's ranks thinner by the week.

The appointees who have held top positions as envoys on climate changeand the Arctic have represented the United States in international climate negotiations and in multilateral diplomatic talks on the future of the Arctic region. Currently, both of those positions are vacant. Jonathan Pershing, former special envoy for climate change, and Admiral Robert Papp, former special representative for the Arctic, both resigned after Trump's election.

Positions Expected to Take Over Remain Unfilled

Tillerson said the work done by their offices will shift to the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (known as OES)—a corner of the State Department that previously played a central role in international negotiations, but which is currently dormant as upper-level positions remain unfilled.

One State Department employee familiar with the Office of the Special Representative to the Arctic said the transition could be seamless—but for one thing: "They are still lacking specific policy guidance on many things they work on. Their work has been forced into a lull because they have not been given any guidance on something they can proactively do."

"They're all sitting there twiddling their thumbs," the employee said.

The elimination of the envoy offices will affect seven positions and $761,000 in the climate change office and an additional five positions and $438,000 in the Arctic office. Trump's proposed budget calls for a 32 percent cut to the State Department budget.

The OES is currently helmed by Acting Assistant Secretary Judith G. Garber, but acting secretaries aren't in a good position to make policy decisions because they lack the authority of a congressionally confirmed appointee. Now, the OES ranks are about to be thinned even further, as Daniel A. Reifsnyder, the deputy assistant secretary for environment, who plans to leave the department soon.

Loss of U.S. Leadership?

"This strikes me as close to the elimination of capacity," said Rafe Pomerance, a member of the Polar Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine who served as a deputy assistant secretary for environment and development under President Clinton until 1999. Shifting the responsibilities of the Arctic and climate change envoys "would not be a disaster," Pomerance said, as long as there were a clear commitment in the OES to deal with the issues. "But fundamentally, Tillerson is not there on this," he said. "Either on the climate issue globally or in the Arctic."

"The notion that we're going to exhibit any positive leadership on this feels pretty hopeless. Rather, we're slowing it all down," Pomerance said.

Although the Trump administration, which has said it will leave the international Paris climate agreement, nevertheless expects to participate in negotiations pending its eventual withdrawal, the lack of top appointees to attend meetings like the next conference of treaty parties in Bonn in November will likely render it impotent.

Todd Stern, who was the United States' chief negotiator for the Paris Agreement as the special envoy for climate change from 2009 to 2016, said that while the position wasn't necessary to get the work done, it certainly helped. "It allowed the United States to have a very senior level person who was focusing just on this issue," he said.

"The administration has already shown its colors on this issue," Stern said, referring to the Trump administration's public statements about climate change and continuing efforts to roll back U.S. climate policies. "It's no surprise that they decided to do away with my office. Indeed, I would have been quite surprised if they had not done that, given the orientation they have clearly demonstrated."

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/06/04/court-papers-claim-rex-tillerson-approved-misleading-carbon-accounting-scheme-while-exxonmobil-boss

GM 1989, chair 2006

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2017/01/13199/exxon-illegally-funded-alec-under-tillersons-tenure-cmd-tells-committee

Written Statement of Lisa Graves on Behalf of the Center for Media and Democracy Submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Hearing on the Nomination of Rex Tillerson to Be U.S. Secretary of State.

January 11, 2017

Dear Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Cardin and Members of the Committee:

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) would like to bring your attention a matter of serious concern regarding the nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be U.S. Secretary of State. We would also respectfully request that this letter be included in the hearing record on his nomination, which we oppose.

For more than a decade under Mr. Tillerson's tenure, Exxon has poured millions of dollars into nonprofit organizations in order to undermine public confidence in climate science and promote its anti-regulatory agenda.

In the case of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), we believe that course of action was illegal.

On October 15, 2016, CMD and Common Cause filed a detailed account of the scheme with the Internal Revenue Service's Whistleblower Office, backed up by more than 240 exhibits. The submission and all of the supporting documentation can be found at http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/10/06/exxon-alec-running-illegal-lobbying-scheme-irs-complaint/.

Between 1998 and 2014, Exxon and its foundation spent more than $1.7 million to finance lobbying activity by ALEC on legislation and public policies that benefit the corporation, while likely improperly and illegally claiming a tax deduction for those expenditures. More than $1 million of that money was given to ALEC while Mr. Tillerson was President and then CEO of Exxon.

Exxon's collusion with ALEC resulted in the coordinated introduction of scores of bills in state houses across the country, which ALEC promoted and carefully tracked. ALEC boasted of its efforts to win passage of that legislation in press releases and statements to its members. Meanwhile, ALEC fraudulently claimed on its tax returns it spent $0 on lobbying.

Exxon was not a passive participant in this arrangement. For most, if not all, of that period, Exxon paid substantial sums to serve in a leadership capacity at ALEC, both on the group's corporate board and on its energy-related issue task forces, where corporations promote "model" legislation for legislative members to push into law. In that capacity, Exxon and other fossil fuel companies held de facto veto power over what bills would or would not be promoted by ALEC. That activity constituted a gross violation of federal tax laws by Exxon.

At the center of Exxon's efforts was a 1998 "Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan"developed by Exxon and other oil companies to "inform the American public that science does not support the precipitous actions [the] Kyoto [climate treaty] would dictate." The plan envisioned spending $5 million over two years to "inform and educate members of Congress, state officials, industry leadership, and school teachers/students about the uncertainties in climate science."

Ultimately, Exxon ended up spending at least $30.9 million to support climate denial groups between 1998 and 2014. More than $18 million of that climate-denial cash was spent after Mr. Tillerson became Exxon's President and then CEO.

Exxon also used ALEC to promote its corporate legislative agenda concerning regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, fracking, and the Keystone Pipeline. For example, as detailed in the New York Times, Exxon drafted and introduced a fracking bill that was adopted by ALEC and then introduced in at least six states.

By intentionally using a 501(c)(3) charity to promote its legislative agenda, instead of a 501(c)(6) trade association, Exxon benefited from the arms-length appearance of neutrality the charity provided, and likely claimed the full amount of funding as a tax deduction. Comparable payments to a trade association would not be tax-exempt.

In light of those facts, CMD and Common Cause urged the IRS to expedite its open and active investigation into potential civil and criminal liability for both ALEC and Exxon, to revoke ALEC's 501(c)(3) status,to impose any necessary civil and criminal penalties, and to collect unpaid back and present taxes for nondeductible lobbying activities from both ALEC and its corporate donors, including Exxon.

Eric Havian, a prominent whistleblower lawyer at Constantine Cannon who is handling the case concluded, "It is corrupt to use the tax laws as a cover for corporate lobbying, but it'seven worse in this case. Exxon uses ALEC's charitable status to fuel its disinformation campaign on climate change, so taxpayers are literally paying Exxon to lie to them."

Mr. Tillerson's apparent willingness to illicitly use nonprofit organizations to sway public and political opinion on climate science and promote his lobbying agenda is very troubling.

Notably, Exxon's use of ALEC to advance disinformation on climate change and to obstruct efforts to mitigate climate change behind the scenes occurred while Exxon was conveying to its shareholders that it was working to address climate change That matter is under investigation the Attorneys General of New York and California. The Committee should not consider giving Mr. Tillerson the role of top U.S. diplomat until those legal investigations are completed and if they exonerate Exxon of wrongdoing under Mr. Tillerson's watch.

There are many very strong reasons to oppose Mr. Tillerson's confirmation. The deception Exxon executed through ALEC is one of them. Thank you for considering our views.

Respectfully,

Lisa Graves, Executive Director

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08062017/exxon-climate-fraud-rex-tillerson-erased-wayne-tracker-emails-witness

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/06/04/court-papers-claim-rex-tillerson-approved-misleading-carbon-accounting-scheme-while-exxonmobil-boss

Former ExxonMobil CEO and now-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson personally approved a scheme for accounting for the financial impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the company's business that deliberately misled investors, one that continued right through ExxonMobil's May 31st shareholders', according to an explosive court filing by the New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman.

Schneiderman claims that beginning in 2007, ExxonMobil used one set of figures in describing carbon-related risks to investors but internally used another, secret set. The net result was to vastly understate the financial danger to the company.

The June 2nd court filing also accuses the ExxonMobil of destroying countless documents despite the fact that it had a legal obligation to preserve all records potentially relevant to the attorney general's investigation, which is probing possible fraud in ExxonMobil's disclosures about climate change to investors and the public.

“These failures directly resulted in the destruction of months, and in many cases, more than a year’s worth, of emails and other electronic documents belonging to key custodians including the company’s top management and reserves analysts,” the attorney general writes.

Material from a secret email account maintained by Tillerson's under the name “Wayne Tracker” was also evidently destroyed.

An ExxonMobil lawyer acknowledged that she “knew in 'early 2016' about the second email address for Rex Tillerson — the Wayne Tracker email address — and that she did not disclose that email address to OAG, stating that it would 'be an interesting testof whether the Attorney General’s office is reading the documents,' ” according to the filing (emphasis in the original) in state court in Manhattan.

This omission led to “months of automatic destruction of relevant correspondence involving Mr. Tillerson,” the court papers charged.

Courts can impose substantial financial and other sanctions - and even criminal penalties - for destruction of evidence.

The attorney general did present a number of preserved emails that seem to show Tillerson's fingerprints on the decision-making for how to minimize to the public the likely impact of a carbon-constrained business environment - such as new national and international greenhouse gas regulations - not only on ExxonMobil's business operations, but on the value of its oil and gas assets.

A May 2011 email exchange between ExxonMobil managers describes two different price calculations for the potential cost to the company of a ton of emitted carbon dioxide, one used internally and one presented to the public as the “proxy” for GHG costs that the company supposedly used in calculating the impact on ExxonMobil's bottom-line.

“I have pointed out the difference in past reviews,” writes Tom R. Eizember, then Planning Manager for Corporate Strategic Planning at the company.

“Rex has seemed happy with the difference previously - appeared to feel it provides a “conservative” basis (but only if viewed from the perspective of claiming economics credits to reduce emissions; it is not conservative vs EO from the perspective of debiting actions that increase emissions),” Eizember continues.

The AG's court filing provides a significant amount of new, explosive information about what the investigation, which began in 2015, is undercovering about the world's largest oil company's climate secrets. These are backed up by 33 exhibits that include internal corporate emails, a transcript of an investor conference call, and XOM's own reports on carbon risk.

The probe of ExxonMobil by the New York Attorney General's Office is widening. Investigators have taken depositions of company executives and issued additional subpoenas to determine whether the company may have destroyed evidence connected to an alias email used by former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson.

The disclosure was made Friday in arguments filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in a Manhattan federal court. He is seeking dismissal of a request by Exxon for an injunction that would halt his investigation into the oil giant involving whether it misled shareholders and the public about the risks of climate change.

Attorneys for Schneiderman did not elaborate in the 25-page document on the scope of the expanded investigation other than to suggest that it involved the recent disclosure that Tillerson, now U.S. secretary of state, used an email alias when discussing issues including climate change and the risk that it posed to the company.

New York and Massachusetts investigators denounced the company's attempt in federal court to derail their parallel inquiries as a vexatious legal tactic that has no chance of succeeding.

"So far, this federal action's primary purpose has been to investigate the NYOAG's Investigation," the New York brief states.

The filings by Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey represent the first round in a series of legal jousts expected over the course of the summer before U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni.

The two attorneys general argued that the proper venue for Exxon to fight the investigations, which are based on each state's fraud statutes, are in the respective state courts. Having a federal court intervene could mean that states might lose their autonomy in future investigations. "If this action proceeds, even to discovery, federal judges regularly could be called upon to determine when a recipient of a document subpoena may learn details of, or even halt, the state investigation that generated the subpoena," according to the New York brief.

Healey's office echoed that positionin its brief.

The disclosure by Schneiderman's office of a widening investigation focused on the possible destruction of evidence that heightened the stakes.

"In this ongoing investigation, the NYOAG has served additional subpoenas upon Exxon," according to the New York brief. "For example, because of concern about spoliation of documents, and in conformance with proceedings before the New York court on that issue, the NYOAG has taken, pursuant to subpoena, testimony of witnesses who may possess information relevant to spoliation."

The expanded investigation comes after Exxon conceded that it failed to preserve all documents from Tillerson's shadow email account, under the alias Wayne Tracker, and has failed to turn over other documents from top executives. New York investigators said in the brief that "no preservation hold was placed on Wayne Tracker" emails by Exxon, a process meant to insure they were not destroyed.

"We have and will continue to use all of the tools at our disposal to get to the bottom of these issues and to further our investigation," said Amy Spitalnick, Schneiderman's press secretary.

An Exxon spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Exxon has until June 16 to formally respond in court.

Schneiderman's office disclosed the existence of Tillerson's alternate email as part of an open investigation of Exxon that began in November 2015 in connection with possible securities fraud over whether the company misled shareholders and the public about climate change.

Tillerson used the Wayne Tracker email account for eight years to discuss, among other things, climate change-related issues and the risks they posed to the company's business, investigators claim.

The company turned over a handful of the emails in January and at that time said the emails had been overlooked because the company did not have the technical capability to identify them.

Exxon later said it could account for all but a one-month period of emails from Tillerson's alternate email account, from September to November 2014, according to a letter to a New York state court judge.

The case landed in Caproni's courtroom in March after a federal judge in Texas determined Exxon'schallenge to the investigations was best settled in New York.

While Exxon enjoyed a series of favorable rulings in Texas, Caproni has signaled she is skeptical of Exxon's arguments to put a stop to climate fraud investigations by the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts.

Investigations launched by the two attorneys general provoked Exxon tofile a lawsuit seeking an injunction to derail the probes. The investigations focus on whether past statements by Exxon questioning climate change science and downplaying climate change risks to the company constituted a form of fraud against the public and its shareholders.

Exxon argued that the investigations were politically motivated and intended to silence the company and any others who did not share the same views of climate change as the two attorneys general. The company has indicated that it willrepeat that argument in Caproni's court.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

OIL/TAR SANDS

BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

arctic talks

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18052017/arctic-council-climate-change-rex-tillerson-donald-trump

Leaked Draft Shows How U.S. Weakened Climate Change Wording in the Arctic Declaration

The U.S.-edited draft, obtained by InsideClimate News, shows how the Trump administration targeted climate actions. It's a strategy we could see in future meetings.

he day before the Arctic Council met for its biannual ministerial last week, the United States requested six changes to the intergovernmental declaration that was to be issued—each of which weakened the language on climate change.

The Arctic Council, an intergovernmental body representing all eight Arctic states, does not make policy, but the diplomatic work accomplished there is intended to trickle back to the countries and result in changes. An important part of that is the declaration issued at the end of each two-year chairmanship, which is signed by top officials from each country, to acknowledge the scientific and diplomatic work that was accomplished and to state the council's goals going forward.

The last-minute move by the United States to weaken the document can be seen as a test case for what we can expect at larger, more consequential meetings of international organizations dealing with global warming issues and policy as President Donald Trump rolls back U.S. climate policies and backslides on international commitments.

At last week's meeting, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson brought the United States' chairmanship to an end and passed the torch to Finland. When the declaration was released, it was applauded by some for its inclusion of language about the Paris climate agreement and climate change.

"There was a great deal of debate as to whether or not climate would even be addressed in the declaration," Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said at a public event on Wednesday. "It is significant to note that not only was it addressed, it was acknowledged in the Fairbanks declaration that climate change is happening, that we're seeing impacts in the Arctic at twice the rate as in other places, and it is attributable to emissions."

Whit Sheard of the Circumpolar Conservation Union, an observer to the council, said he was relieved to see the final text. "I thought it was pretty impressive," he said.

But those in the negotiations know how much more aggressive it could have been.

"Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of the people who read the declaration will not have the benefit of hindsight and will think it's pretty good and we agree with that," said Jim Gamble, who represents the Aleut International Association, a permanent participant on the council. "There's an effort to move the climate agreement and sustainable development goals forward. But for those of us who are involved in the whole negotiation, we know at various times there was stronger language."

Behind the scenes, it had been a mad dash to get the declaration finalized.

The group of negotiators—which includes representatives from each of the Arctic countries and from six indigenous groups that are permanent participants on the council—had planned to meet for an hour on May 10 to finalize grammar and other trivial changes.

But on May 9, the negotiators received a new version of the declaration from the United States that asked for six changes—all downplaying climate risks, the need for the Paris treaty or ambitious renewable energy goals. Negotiators spent a long morning huddled around a table, working line-by-line through the document projected on a screen. The other nations challenged the U.S. on every point, often joined by the indigenous groups.

Because the negotiation process is closed to the public—and even to the groups with observer status at the Arctic Council—draft versions of the declaration are confidential. InsideClimate News obtained a copy of the May 9 version, with track-change suggestions by the State Department's acting assistant secretary, Judith Garber. ICN spoke with multiple sources who were part of the negotiations. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the confidentiality of the talks.

The Changes

The Arctic Council is a consensus body, and its declarations are hammered out over a series of negotiations. As the outgoing chair country, the United States under President Obama wrote the first draft.

The Fairbanks Declaration was the result of three negotiations—in Juneau in mid-March, in New York in April, and on May 10, the day before the ministerial.

After the meeting in New York, the general consensus was that the document was largely finalized—until the changes from the United States arrived on May 9.

It was like the United States "just dropped a bomb on a multilateral forum at the last minute," said one council delegate. "I don't think any of us were mentally prepared that we were now going to be in a make it or break it situation."

The first change that the United States proposed fell near the end of the preamble and had to do with the great elephant in the room at any climate-related talks the U.S. is now involved in: the Paris climate agreement. Trump's policies would all but ensure the U.S. would miss its Paris pledges, and the president's advisers have been caught up in an internal struggle over whether to leave the treaty or simply backslide on the country's commitments.

The version of the declaration that the countries had previously agreed on noted the entry into force of the Paris Agreement "for the parties to that Agreement" and encouraged its implementation. The U.S. objected to that language, and the final version reflects a softer approach.

Immediately following that paragraph, the preamble had called for the commitment to working toward full implementation of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The goals, established by the UN in 2015, seek to end poverty, improve health and education and combat climate change. They include ambitious clean energy targets.

The U.S. called for the deletion of that section of the declaration. Led by Finland, the other parties pushed back, and the section was put back in, albeit in less forceful terms.

Lower down, in a paragraph devoted to energy, the United States contested a reference to renewable energy. Where the earlier version reiterated "the need to improve the access of Arctic communities to clean, affordable, renewable and reliable energy sources," the U.S. wanted to delete the word "renewable."

Many countries, as well as the indigenous groups, fought this, and the word "renewable" made it back in—though in a less prominent place.

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