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FTI consulting

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all have same sr title, nearly all ex staffers, one boehner

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https://www.desmog.com/fti-consulting/

background

FTI Consulting (NYSE: FCN) describes itselfas “an independent global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations manage change, mitigate risk and resolve disputes: financial, legal, operational, political & regulatory, reputational and transactional.”1

FTI offers services for a wide range of industries. For example, its energy industry services offer “advisory services that address the strategic, financial, reputational, regulatory and legal needs of energy and utility clients involved in the production of crude oil, natural gas, refined products, chemicals, coal, electric power, emerging technologies and renewable energy” as well as “strategic communications services across all disciplines.”2

FTI maintains an “Environmental Solutions Group” which focuses on “the resolution of complex contamination, toxic tort, products liability and insurance disputes.”3

For the mining industry, they offer “a comprehensive range of corporate finance, economic consulting and strategic communications services.”4

FTI Consulting is a public company. It began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol FCN in 2001. The group was initially known as Forensic Technologies International before changing its name to FTI Consulting in 1998, and initially went public under the name Forensic Technologies International (ticker symbol FTIC) in 1996.5

The group was founded in 1982 by Dan Luczak and Joseph Reynolds in Annapolis, Md. Its initial role would include providing courtroom evidence and computer models to help staff and jury members assess cases. In 1995, the company provided courtroom graphics and jury consultation to the O.J. Simpson trial.6

Energy In Depth

FTI Consulting (and Dittus Communications) helped launch the Energy In Depth campaign on behalf of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), DeSmogfound. One key element of the campaign was supporting unconventional drilling (“fracking”) for natural gas in the Marcellus region in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and neighboring states.7

*DeSmog* obtained a leaked memo in 2011 that revealed Energy In Depth “would not be possible without the early financial commitments” of major oil and gas interests including BP, Halliburton, Chevron, Shell, XTO Energy (now owned by ExxonMobil), and several other large oil and gas companies.8

In a October 2014 “Technical Paper,” FTI Consulting outlined how it teamed up with the IPAA in 2009 to launch the program, which it describes as “a research, education and rapid response platform specifically focused on telling the story of unconventionals development.”9

“Through our experience managing aboveground risks in the United States and around the world, we have learned that no matter what challenge a company, coalition or organization is facing – whether it is opposition to hydraulic fracking, widespread deception about oil sands and pipelines, or lack of awareness on LNG exports – all risks can be managed and eventually neutralized if addressed early on and with the right set of tools and tactics,” the paper concludes.”10

In addition to EID, FTI Consulting is behind other “shale gas advocacy initiatives” including the Energy Resource Information Centre in Australia, and Shale Gas Europe.11

[doc]

...

ote that many of FTI‘s communications efforts no longer appear to be in operation, and websites have closed down for many of these groups.13

Producers for American Crude Oil Exports (PACE)

PACE was formed in October 2014 with the stated mission of lifting the 1975 ban on crude oil exports from the United States. With the ban lifted, the PACE website is no longer updatedbut “remain accessible to the public for reference purposes only.”14

PACE member companies included:

Center for Liquified Natural Gas (CLNG)

The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas (CLNG) is a 501(c)(6) organization formed in 2007 with ties to theAmerican Petroleum Institute and Natural Gas Supply Association (listed as the registrant for the CLNG website). It describes itself as “a committee of the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA).”15

According to an informational brochure, “The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas (CLNG) advocates for public policies that advance the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the United States, and its export internationally.”16

According to its website, CLNG‘s Members have included:

Member:{2017:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:600"):}::{2018:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:600"):}::{2019:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:600"):}:
AnadarkoYY
BPYYY
CheniereYY
ChevronYYY
ConstellationYY
DominionYYY
ENGIEYY
ExxonMobilYYY
Freeport :{LNG:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:YYY
Golden Pass :{LNG:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:YYY
Jordan Cove :{LNG:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:YYY
Mitsubishi CorporationYYY
NextDecadeY
ShellYYY
TOTALYYY

Marcellus Shale Coalition

FTI Consulting is listed as an “Associate Member” of the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MCS), a group founded in 2008 with the stated goal of providing “in-depth information to policymakers, regulators, media and other public stakeholders on the positive effects responsible natural gas production is having on families, businesses, and communities across the region.”17 18

Shale Resource Centre Canada

...

according to an archive of the group’s now-defunct website, Shale Gas Europe was managed by FTI Consulting:20

“The shale gas debate in Europe is extremely important for the future of our energy supply. It is therefore essential that the debate is balanced, informative and engaging to allow the public to come to their own conclusions on the issue.

As a result, the industry decided to set-up a dedicated resource centre that is open to anyone who wants to understand more about shale gas, tight gas and coalbed methane. The secretariat of Shale Gas Europe is managed by FTI Consulting.

Launched in 2012, this platform will bring together industry, experts and academics to collect, share and communicate the interesting science and technology involved in shale gas exploration. It will also show the facts about the potential of responsibly developing Europe’s onshore energy reserves of shale gas.”

Energy Resource Information Centre (Australia)

According to anarchive of the group’s now-defunct website, the Energy Resource Information Centre “promotes the natural gas industry and provides a fact based, evidence led source of information about natural gas exploration and development.”21

“We are funded by the natural gas industry, and make no secret of that fact.

“Our membership includes major exploration and production companies, along with companies that support the responsible development of Australia’s natural gas industry.

With support from industry participants, the Energy Resource Information Centre builds on the deep expertise of the US-based Energy In Depth campaign, the Shale Resource Centre Canada, and Shale Gas Europe.”

The website notes that “Resourcing for the Centre is provided by FTI Consulting, a global business advisory company.”

Western Wire & Exxon

Matt Dempsey, a strategist for FTI Consulting who works with Energy In Depth,was recorded attempting to get an interview for *Western Wire*with Marco Simons, general counsel for EarthRights International. EarthRights was representing the city and county of Boulder and the County of San Miguel in a lawsuit the communities filed in 2018 seeking climate damages from Exxon.22

Earthrights recorded and released the audio, in which Dempsey confirmed that the news site Western Wire was staffed primarily with representatives from FTI Consulting, and that FTI ran the site on a contract from the Western Energy Alliance.23

When asked if the Western Energy Alliance included membership from Exxon, and if they were acting in any way as representatives of Exxon (in which case Simons would be unable to conduct the interview), both Dempsey and fellow FTI strategist Michael Sandoval refused to answer directly.24

The *Western Wire* describes itselfas “the go-to source for news, commentary and analysis on pro-growth, pro-development policies across the West.”25

“Western Wire is a project of Western Energy Alliance, a non-profit regional oil and natural gas association based in Denver, Colo., and active across 13 states. The Alliance works closely with stakeholders in state and local government; academia; ranching; other industries; think tanks; and sportsmen’s, civic, business, issue advocacy and other groups. These allies share an interest in a vibrant western economy with robust job creation”

Stance on Climate Change

2019

FTI Consulting’s Energy In Depth campaign has consistently advocated for natural gas as a solution to reduce carbon emissions.  EID maintains its own subdomain, EnergyInDepth Climate and Environment (eidclimate.org), promoting the “Climate Benefits of Natural Gas”:26

“You’ve probably heard environmental activists attack hydraulic fracturing (fracking) because they say it worsens climate change. But like so much of the anti-fossil fuel “Keep It In the Ground” campaign, what they are saying has no basis in science or evidence.”

[…]

“By unlocking an abundant and low-cost fuel like natural gas, the fracking revolution has been a clear winner for the economy, our national security, and the climate.”

Funding

[Annual Reports]

Key People

Board of Directors

Name 2005 2008 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2018 Description

Gerard E. Holthaus Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of FTI Consulting, Inc. and Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of WillScot Corporation

Brenda J. Bacon Y Y Y Y Y Y Y President and Chief Executive Officer of Brandywine Senior Living LLC

Claudio Costamagna Y Y Y Y Y Chairman of CC e Soci S.r.l.

Sir Vernon Ellis Y Y Y Y Y Former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the British Council

Nicholas C. Fanandakis Y Y Y Y Executive Vice President of DowDuPont, Inc.

Steven H. Gunby Y Y Y Y President and Chief Executive Officer

Mark S. Bartlett Y Y Y Former Partner at Ernst & Young, LLP

Laureen E. Seeger Y Y Chief Legal Officer of the American Express Company

James W. Crownover Y Y Y Y Y Y Former Head of McKinsey and Company’s Southwest Practice and Co-Head of McKinsey Worldwide Energy Practice

Marc L. Holtzman Y Y Y Former Chairman of Meridian Capital (HK) Limited

Denis J. Callaghan Y Y Y Y Y Retired Former Director of North American Equity Research for Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown

Dennis J. Shaughnessy Y Y Y Y Chairman of the Board

George P. Stamas Y Y Y Y Partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Jack B. Dunn, IV Y Y Y Y President and Chief Executive Officer

Henrique de Campos Meirelles Y Managing Partner and President of Henrique Meirelles e Associados

Mark H. Berey Y Y Y President of MHB Ventures LLC

Matthew F. McHugh Y Y Y Retired Former Nine-Term United States Congressman

Gary C. Wendt Y Former CEO of Conseco Inc. and Chairman and CEO of GE Capital Services

James A. Flick, Jr. Y President and Chief Executive Officer, Winnow, Inc.

Peter F. O’Malley Y Of Counsel, O’Malley, Miles, Nylen & Gilmore

Business/Corporate Leadership/”Corporate Professionals”

Name 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Description

Steven H. Gunby Y Y Y Y Y Y President and Chief Executive Officer

Holly Paul Y Y Y Y Y Chief Human Resources Officer

Paul Linton Y Y Y Y Y Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer

Curtis Lu Y Y Y Y General Counsel

Jeffrey S. Amling Y Y Y Y Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Business Development

Matthew Pachman Y Y Y Y Vice President−Chief Risk and Compliance Officer

Ajay Sabherwal Y Y Y Chief Financial Officer

Ronald Reno Y Y Y Y Vice President and Corporate Treasurer

John A. MacColl Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Senior Managing Director, Client Engagement and Conflict Resolution

Carlyn R. Taylor Y Y Global Segment Co-Leader, Corporate Finance & Restructuring and FTI Consulting Industry Initiative Leader

Charles D. Overstreet Y Y Global Practice Leader, Health Solutions

Heather Klink Y Y Deputy General Counsel

Joanne Catanese Y Y Associate General Counsel and Secretary

John Klick Y Y Senior Vice President

Kevin Hewitt Y Y Chairman of Europe, Middle East & Africa

Leslie H. Moeller Y Y Chairman of North and South America

Mark McCall Y Y Global Segment Leader, Strategic Communications

Michael C. Eisenband Y Y Global Segment Co-Leader, Corporate Finance & Restructuring

Mollie Hawkes Y Y Managing Director, Investor Relations and Communications

Paul S. Ficca Y Y Global Segment Leader, Forensic and Litigation Consulting

Sophie Ross Y Y Global Segment Leader, Technology

Brendan J. Keating Y Chief Accounting Officer and Controller

Catherine M. Freeman Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Senior Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer

Chris Osborne Y Global Segment Leader, Economic Consulting

Joanne F. Catanese Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary

Adam S. Bendell Y Y Y Y Chief Innovation Officer

David M. Johnson Y Chief Financial Officer

Heather A. Klink Y Acting General Counsel

David G. Bannister Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Executive Vice President and Chairman of the North America Region

Eric B. Miller Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Risk Officer

Roger D. Carlile Y Y Y Y Y Y Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Jack B. Dunn, IV Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y President and Chief Executive Officer

Denis J. Callaghan Y Retired Former Director of North American Equity Research for Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown

Dennis J. Shaughnessy Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Chairman of the Board

Liz Nickles Y Y Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

Dominic DiNapoli Y Y Y Y Y Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Curt A. H. Jeschke, Jr. Y Y Y Y Vice President – Internal Audit

Jorge A. Celaya Y Y Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Declan M. Kelly Y Executive Vice President and Chief Integration Officer

Charles Boryenace Y Y Vice President and Controller

Cheryl J. Meeks Y Y Assistant Secretary

Greg Wills Y Y Chief Information Officer

Theodore I. Pincus Y Y Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Dianne R. Sagner Y Vice President and General Counsel

Sara Lacombe Y Senior Vice President, Human Resources

Energy In Depth & Related Entities

Some notable indivduals below with ties to FTI Consulting’s pro-oil and fracking initiatives:

Energy In Depth & Related Entities

Some notable indivduals below with ties to FTI Consulting’s pro-oil and fracking initiatives:

Mike Catanzaro — Former managing director.

Mike Catanzaro previously worked as a managing director at FTI Consulting before going to work as a topenergy policy aide in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2018.27

Steve Everley — Managing Director of Strategic Communications.28

Everley is Senior Advisor to Energy In Depth and current spokesman for Texans for Natural Gas. He was also energy policy advisor to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at the American Enterprise Institute and American Solutions.29

Dave Quast — Senior Director of Strategic Communications.30

Dave Quast is a California director of Energy In Depth. Quast formerly worked as director of public affairs at the Cato Institute.31

Steve Wright —Hiredby FTI Consulting in Australia and worked as director of the pro-fracking Energy Resource Information Center.32 33

Katie Brown — Director of Strategic Communications.

Katie Brown joined FTI Consulting in 2013, and as of 2015, she was a spokesperson for Energy In Depth. According to her profile in a 2015 FTI Consulting presentation to the oil industry, “in addition to a similar role played for the Shale Resource Centre (Canada’s Energy In Depth program). She was also a spokesperson and primary writer for Oil Sands Fact Check, an education campaign on the Keystone XL pipeline.” She previously served on staff for the Republican minority at the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.34

Chris Tucker — Managing director, Strategic Communications.

Tucker was listed as team lead for Energy In Depth, according to a 2013 profile, which notes “His primary areas of focus and expertise reside in the oil, natural gas and mining sectors.” Tucker was a communications and energy advisor to U.S. Rep. John Peterson (Pa.) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) and also communications director to the House Energy Action Team.35

Jim Willis — Previously described as a “special correspondent” for Energy In Depth Marcellus(EID-M). DeSmog* has reported that Willis runs *Marcellus Drilling News (MDN), a website with commentary that “frequently carries overtones of religious and racial animus.”36 37

Other People

Note that FTI Consulting lists over 1,100 experts and staff on its website. View the attached spreadsheet for an analysis and complete listing of FTI Consulting experts and leadership (.xlsx) as of September 2019.

Actions

September 27, 2021

FTI Consulting senior managing director and head of public affairs Alex Deane appeared on a GB News program with Nigel Faragewhere he criticized the UK’s efforts to curb climate change prior to the COP26 summit, *PRWeek* reported.38

“Even if we closed down UK PLC, the increase from what we see from our friends in China would more than swallow it up,” Deane commented, emphasizing he was speaking in a personal capacity.

He added:

“What we do in this country – the hair-shirt attitude of ‘take your boiler out’, ‘get a new car’, the idea that we should be beating up people for not being quite green enough when the world’s biggest polluters are exempt from the Paris accords – for me, that’s for the birds.”

Later in the program, Deane commented on the BBC licence fee:

“We shouldn’t just scrap the licence fee, we should scrap the BBC. [It] is no longer fit for purpose.”

November 11, 2020

The New York Times, in an article based on interviews with former FTI employees, internal FTI documents, and website registration information, found that FTI consulting had been involved in the operations of “at least 15 current and past influence campaigns promoting fossil-fuel interests in addition to its direct work for oil and gas clients.”39

Hiroko Tabuchi wrote in the New York Times article thatExxonMobilmay have had a larger role than previously advertised in FTI‘s Energy In Depth campaign:40

“Former employees familiar with Energy In Depth said the site’s content had direction from Exxon Mobil, one of the major clients of the FTI division that worked on these oil and gas campaigns,” Tabuchi wrote. “The Energy In Depth website notes its affiliation with an energy trade group that Exxon is a member of, though not Exxon’s role in directing content that the site published.”

While on the surface, FTI‘s campaigns appeared to “amplify local voices or speak up for regular people,” on closer investigation, groups “were part of a network of corporate influence campaigns designed, staffed and at times run by FTI Consulting, which had been hired by some of the largest oil and gas companies in the world to help them promote fossil fuels.”

These included a 2018 push by FTI‘s project, the Main Street Investors Coalition warning “that climate activism doesn’t help mom-and-pop investors in the stock market” and campaigns by Texans for Natural Gas and the Arctic Energy Center in 2017 to support fracking and advocate for on-shore and offshore drilling in Alaska.

A spokesman for FTI claimed the group had always been transparent, commenting: “We hide behind no one.” An Exxon spokesman would not comment, claiming the New York Times reporter was biased against the fossil fuel industry.

Texans for Natural Gas describes itself as a local organization representing “citizens and officeholders, business owners and students” and is funded by oil and gas companies including Exxon subsidiary XTO Energy. Elizabeth Caldwell, listed as a “a spokeswoman for the grass-roots organization,” is also a director at FTI.

“Acting as Texans for Natural Gas representatives, FTI employees have launched pro-industry petitions, produced videos and reports on the importance of the Permian Basin oil field, and written opinion pieces for local newspapers supporting fossil fuels. The site features testimonials from three women, two of whom are represented with stock photos and one with a photo used without permission from the Flickr page of a photographer in the Philippines,” Tabuchi reported. She added, “Texans for Natural Gas has also shared misleading information about greenhouse gas emissions. In 2018, it issued a study inaccurately claiming that emissions of methane had decreased significantly in the heart of Texas oil country at the height of the fracking boom.”

Other campaigns FTI was behind included: 41

Tabuchi also uncovered how an FTI group called StratCom, short for Strategic Communications, had tracked the activities of environmental protesters on behalf of Apache Energy, who was seeking to drill near Balmorhea State Park in Texas.

As part of those efforts, FTI also created a fake Facebook profile in the name of “Susan McDonald” to keep track of protestors. The account “was also intended to help FTI keep tabs on activists, former FTI employees said.” While its friends list included one current and one former FTI employee.

FTI spokesman Matthew Bashalany said, “A Facebook profile was created by a former employee to monitor social media anonymously. This was wrong, and it is against our policy.”

Former StratCom employees also said the group had used strategies to influence public discourse. For example, an internal document dated November 20, 2015 laid out possible roles for communicators such as “The “Semantic Nitpicker,” as the document explained, who “asks an endless series of questions.” The “Dog Typing on a Keyboard” uses “very poor grammar, spelling and punctuation and posts frequently to clutter up the thread and make it hard to read.”

Bashalany claimed senior managers were never aware of the document and it “never informed any activities or approaches to social or digital media engagement of any kind.”

Other strategies they employed included purchasing targeted social media ads leading to the since-shut-down Arctic Energy Center website that promoted drilling in Alaskan waters and in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge. Exxon was reportedly a backer of the Center. A 2016 FTI presentation included a draft budget showing Exxon scheduled to contribute $120,000 over six months on social media platforms.

The New York Timesalso detailed FTI‘s involvement in Main Street Investors, a group claiming to represent small investors and created by industry groups including the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).

FTI worked with NAM on a study, written by employees of FTI‘s wholly owned subsidiary Compass Lexecon, that argued against environmental shareholder resolutions.

FTI also worked with theIndependent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) to form DivestmentFacts.com, a website fighting against divestment from fossil fuels. Several papers published on the website were written by professors who also worked for Compass Lexecon.

December 24, 2019

A HuffPost investigation revealed that FTI Consulting was hired by Energy in Depth (EID) to implement a disinformation campaign to discredit scientists who exposed the environmental consequences of fossil fuel extraction and consumption.42

EID received approximately $2 million per year in 2018 and 2019 from the Independent Petroleum Association of America, an industry trade organization that has received support from oil giants such as BP, Shell, Chevron, and Halliburton. The money was delivered in spite of many of IPAA’s member organizations publicly calling for action on climate change.43

EID employed FTI consultants to engage in a campaign of “research, education and public outreach” to dispute factual claims made by scientists and environmentalists, such as dismissing the effects of hydraulic fracturing on water quality.44

September 2019

FTI Consulting was reportedly responsible for planting a freelance reporter, Sylvie Barak, at a trial of Monsanto alleging that the company’s pesticide glyphosate causes cancer. Reporters told *HuffPost* that Barak had told others that she was a freelancer for the BBC.45

One reporter, speaking on the condition of anonymity with HuffPost, discussed events that happened at a party where Barak had invited other journalists who were covering the trial:

“[Barak] would make suggestions about interesting parts of the testimony and then go on and on about certain points of testimony to try and get it into stories, and it was always bad for the plaintiffs.”

She suggested that Barak seemed to be fishing for reporters’ views on Monsanto and the trial, HuffPost reported. When reporters looked into Barak’s background, they found on LinkedIn that she worked for FTI Consulting—among whose clients included Monsanto. When the inquiring reporter contacted Bayer, Monsanto’s parent company (and also a FTI client), Barack’s LinkedIn changed to describe her as a freelancer.

“Monsanto has also previously employed shadowy networks of consultants, PR firms, and front groups to spy on and influence reporters. And all of it appears to be part of a pattern at the company of using a variety of tactics to intimidate, mislead and discredit journalists and critics,” HuffPost noted.

January 2019

Matt Dempsey was one of two strategists employed by FTI Consulting who “posed as journalists in an attempt to interview an attorney representing Colorado communities that are suing Exxon for climate change-related damages,” *Climate Liability News* reported.46

Dempsey and Michael Sandoval reportedly called Marco Simons, general counsel for EarthRights International, who was representing Colorado communities in a lawsuit seeking damages from Exxon. Their action “potentially runs afoul of ethics rules for both the legal and public relations industries, and appeared to be a fishing expedition for information about Simons’ clients in that suit.”

In the call, recorded and released by EarthRights, Sandoval confirmed that Western Wire is run by FTI Consulting staff and run by FTI under a contract. According to Climate Liability News, “the two men pressed for an interview even though Simons quickly said he couldn’t talk to them if they represented Exxon in any way. When they evaded the question, Simons refused to comment.”

Simons pressed the consultants about Exxon’s representation on the board of WEA. Simons asked if Exxon is a Western Energy Alliance member, to which Sandoval responded:  “I’m not privy to the membership of, of the Western Energy Alliance.”

Simon pressed: “OK, well it does include an executive from Exxon on its board, right?” — he was referring to Greg Pulliam , a public and government affairs manager for XTO Energy and Exxon employee.

“Yes,” Sandoval said.

“So, I’m just assuming that Exxon’s one of its members,” Simon said. “I guess I’m just concerned from a conflicts perspective if you’re being funded by an organization that you don’t know their members, how do you, I guess, ensure … lack of conflicts from a journalistic integrity point of view?”

Following this interchange, Sandoval put Matt Dempsey on the line to answer further questions. Dempsey asked Sandoval if he was inquiring on Exxon’s membership as a lawyer representing Boulder, or for his personal information:

“We’re ready to proceed on an interview about the case, but if this is something else, we need to know that now,” said Dempsey, adding that he contacted Simons at the request of the City of Boulder.

Simons reiterated his position.

“What I’m saying is that if you’re representatives of Exxon in any fashion, I can’t talk to you about the litigation as an ethical matter because Exxon is represented by counsel, and I can only talk to their counsel,” Simons said.

Dempsey did not deny representing Exxon and instead questioned Simons’ statement.

“You say you have a conflict in speaking with Western Wire, but that you do not have a conflict in speaking with InsideClimate News, or with Climate Liability News,” Dempsey said.

Simons again said he had a conflict with Western Wire only if the organization was representing Exxon in any way, something neither Dempsey nor Sandoval denied.

Dempsey persisted in the same line of questioning and Simons repeatedly said he could not comment unless the two could confirm they were not Exxon representatives (which they did not).

“I cannot comment about this litigation unless you can tell me that you are not representatives in any way of Exxon,” Simons said.

Dempsey declined to answer and then ended the phone call.

Hear the original audio below:47[link]

may 2015

FTI presented to the Tennesse Oil and Gas Association on“The American Shale Boom.” The presentation, made by Energy In Depth spokesperson Katie Brown, outlined how FTI was “redefining communications support” for shale gas through its initiatives like Energy in Depth and related “informational” websites and groups such as the Shale Resource Center of Canada, Energy Resource Information Centre in Australia, and Shale Gas Europe among others.48

FTI presented Energy In Depth as “Widely regarded as the industry’s lead research and education initiative on all issues relating to onshore oil and gas development.”49

Some of the successes FTI listed for Energy In Depth included a two-part initiative “Debunking Gasland,” in which it worked to counter the award-winning 2010 documentaryexposing issues with the fracking industry in the U.S. That initiative included launching the website “Truthland” by EID.50

Another success listed by FTI is the systematic discrediting of the Duke Methane Studies, in which EID promoted papers suggesting methane in drinking water in northeastern Pennsylvania posed no health risks.51

Another slide lists a side-by-side comparison of coverage by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Scientific American, and The Guardian outlining the dangers of methane produced by fracking to climate change, with Energy In Depth’s reporting instead on a reduction in methane production over time from shale producers.52

February 2015

FTI Consulting conducted a pollon behalf of Producers for American Crude Oil Exports (PACE) that showed a majority of Americans supported crude oil exports.53

According tothe poll, “By a wide 69%‐25% margin, Americans support ‘Allowing American oil producers to sell crude oil to customers in countries who are trading partners.’”54

September 2014

An issue of *FTI Journal*, co-authored by Steve Everley who leads the Energy In Depth program, outlines how a social media strategy is key for the oil industry—specifically fracking—in order to companies to shape public opinion:55

“Put succinctly: The demographic with which the oil and gas industry needs to improve its image also is the most active on social media, sharing content more frequently than any other group”, the article notes.”56

“The fact that users then will share this unadulterated information with their own networks means social media is the ultimate way to get ahead of the news and, in some cases, shape the tone of the ensuing coverage,” the article notes (emphasis added).57

March 6, 2013

FTI released a “white paper” titled “The Rise of Environmental Activism in the Energy Sector.” The paper describes activism as a “growing concern” and outlines strategies to counter activist shareholders without engaging them directly.58

“Environmental shareholder activism in the energy space continues to be a growing concern. These activists, under the guise of transparency and risk mitigation, continue to push for significant changes that would have far-reaching effects on corporate strategies and operations. During the 2012 proxy season, enviro-activists successfully used shareholder resolutions to spur action on sustainability hot-button issues such as hydraulic fracturing, water and air risks, and climate change. Expect more of the same in 2013,” the report summary reads.

The full report (PDF)offers a strategy for “A successful approach to dealing with activist situations.” Under a section titled “The Best Defense is a Good Offense,” best practices listed include developing a communication strategy under the assumption that the environmental concerns are not in the best interest of the company:59

“In order to successfully fend off an environmental activist threat, a company must convince the investment community, and potentially the business media, that the resolution advocated by any activist is not in the best interest of the company and its stakeholders. Accordingly, the organization will need to formulate a communications strategy to ensure that all of its primary stakeholders clearly recognize the long-term implications related to the activist demands before the situation escalates publicly. Included in this strategy is the development of necessary collateral materials that contain compelling facts and figures that serve to debunk activist claims and also assist in further educating shareholders and the media. ”

The plan also outlines how a company can counter environmentalist shareholders while avoiding dialogue entirely:60

“Now is the critical time to begin developing an engagement strategy in order to make sure that your company is prepared to achieve a majority ‘no’ vote and ensure that all of your key stakeholders fully understand the long-term implications of the activist demands before agreeing to any ongoing dialogue with potential activist investors.”

June 27, 2013

Catanzaro co-authored a paper titled “Age of Abundance” (:{PDF:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:), published by FTI Consulting and Sidley Austin LLP, supporting the export of U.S. crude oil. Authors included Mike Catanzaro, Casey O’She aand Jamie McInerney of FTI Consulting and Roger Martella of Sidley Austin.61

2013

Chris Tucker, a managing director for FTI Consulting’s Energy & Natural Resources Sector—and then team lead for Energy In Depth presented at an event on“environmental issues affecting midstream and downstream oil and gas development”62 jointly hosted by Blank Rome LLP and Hull. Hull describes itself as “a project development and engineering consulting firm specializing in Environment, Energy and Infrastructure market.”63

Related Organizations

Energy Industry Clients

FTI Consulting has more than 1,000 clients worldwide. Below are some select samples they provide from the Energy Industry, in a 2013 presentation

...

Below is another slide of FTI clients, this from a 2015 presentation to the oil industry:66

additional groups listed in this graphic include:

Clients in the EU

The following were listed on a profile of :{FTI:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: at the Association of Accredited Public Policy Advocates to the European Union, as of June 2017:67

Oil, Gas, Mining, & Pipeline

Other Clients

*Prevezon has been on trial in the US for laundering funds. According to an article in the *:{EU:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: Observer*, the company was not listed on FTI Consulting’s entry in the European Commission transparency register, however FTI was responsible for arranging meetings between the company’s lawyers and journalists.68

EU Clients by Revenue

The European Commission transparency register lists the following companies for FTI Consulting Belgium for the 2018 financial year:69

With the revenue below 9,999 €:

With the revenue of 10,000 € – 24,999 €:

With the revenue of 25,000 € – 49,999 €:

With the revenue of 100,000 € – 199,999 €:

With the revenue of 200,000 € – 299,999 €:

With the revenue of 300,000 € – 399,999 €:

With the revenue of 400,000 € – 499,999 €:

With the revenue of 500,000 € – 599,999 €:

With the revenue of 600,000 € – 699,999 €:

With the revenue of 700,000 € – 799,999 €:

New clients not covered under financial estimate:

With the revenue below 9,999 €:

With the revenue of 10,000 € – 24,999 €:

With the revenue of 50,000 € – 99,999 €:

With the revenue of 100,000 € – 199,999 €:

With the revenue of 200,000 € – 299,999 €:

Acquisitions70

Contact & Address

As of 2019, FTI Consulting listed that it had more than 4,900 employees and offices in 27 countries.71

Executive Headquarters

555 12th Street NW

Suite 700

Washington DC 20004

United States

TEL: +1 202 312 9100

FAX: +1 202 312 9101

Social Media

Other Resources

Resources

...

https://littlesis.org/org/79148-FTI_Consulting,_Inc

1 of 4

maría Paula Duque

• managing director strategic communications (Mar '21→?)

Eric B Miller

• EVPGen CounselChf Risk Ofcr

Cheryl Edwardes Australian Businessperson & former member of the WA Legislative Assembly

• Senior Advisor Strategic Communications (Jul '13→?)

Jackson T Dunn III Lobbyist, FTI Consulting

• senior managing director, strategic communications

Steven Henry Gunby

• CEO (Jan '14→?) [+1]

Paul Alderman Linton

• Chief Strategy/Transf Officer (Aug '14→?)

Holly Paul

• Chief Human Resources Officer (Jan '15→?)

Heather Klink

• General Counsel (Feb '15→?)

Matthew Pachman

• VP, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer (Feb '15→?)

• Institutional investor

Blue Harbour Group, L.P. A privately owned hedge fund sponsor. The firm invests in the public equity markets of the United States.

• Institutional investor

Argyll Research, LLC

• Institutional investor

Artisan Partners Holdings LP

• Institutional investor

Fidelity Management & Research Company privately owned investment manager

• Institutional investor

T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. A privately owned investment manager, subsidiary of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.

• Institutional investor

BlackRock Institutional Trust Company, N.A. A privately owned investment manager, previously known as Barclays Global Investors, NA

• Institutional investor

Vanguard Group Inc One of the world's largest investment management companies

• Institutional investor

State Street Global Advisors Investment Management Division of State Street Corporation

• Institutional investor

*## Board Members 

1 / 2

Mark S Bartlett

• Board Member (Jan '15→?)

Nicholas C Fanandakis Retired after 40-years as the EVP of DowDuPont Inc

• Board Member (Jan '14→?)

James W Crownover

• Board Member

Steven Henry Gunby

• Board Member (Jan '14→?)

Brenda J Bacon

• Board Member

Claudio Costamagna

• Board Member

Vernon James Ellis

• Board Member

Marc Holtzman

• Board Member

Gerard E Holthaus

• Board Member

George P Stamas Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP

• Board Member (past)*

Donations 

James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy Rice University

• Donation · 75,000 USD

Holdings 

C2 Group LLC

• Owner

Members 

Noble Energy, Inc. Oil and natural gas exploration and production

• PR Representative (Mar 1 '17→May 31 '17)

Faroe Petroleum

• PR Representative (Dec 1 '16→Feb 28 '17)

Trans Adriatic Pipeline

• PR Representative (Dec 1 '16→May 31 '17)

*## Services & Transactions 

1 / 6

Autoridad para las Alianzas Publico Privadas de Puerto Rico

• Service/Transaction · 2,000,000 USD (Sep 4 '19→Jul 31 '20)

Devon Energy Corporation An independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company.

• Lobbying Firm · 50,000 USD

Transportation Fairness Alliance Pro-oil/gas, anti-EV coalition

• client

Independent Petroleum Association of America Oil and gas trade group

• a client ('09→?) [+1]

Comite Oficial de Retirados Comite que presente a los pensionados en la quiebra de Puerto Rico - Committee that represents retirees in Puerto Rico's bankruptcy

• client [+1]

Population Health Collaborative Insurance industry-led Buffalo public health group

• Client

OMV AG Crude oil and natural gas company based in Austria

• consulting client

Intuit TurboTax and other financial software

• Client

Delta Air Lines, Inc. Atlanta, GA based airline

• Client

Burisma Holdings Ukraine’s largest private natural gas producer

• Client:{

Miscellaneous Relationships 

Coloradans for Energy Access Gas industry greenwashing group

• Affiliation

Energy in Depth IPAA's "state of the art online resource center to combat new environmental regulations"

• campaign

:{

:{ 

Updated 29 days ago

}:}:

Basic Info

TypesOrganization, Business, Public Company
Start date1982
Websitehttp://www.fticonsulting.com/
AliasesFTI Consulting

External Links

Tags

:{:{- fracking

}:}:

Source Links

:{:{

83 documents :: see all 

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Network Maps

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A project of the Public Accountability Initiative. More about LittleSis.

===

https://www.desmog.com/2022/02/07/fti-consulting-fossil-fuels-pr-energy-in-depth/

no lnx many docs grafx

An FTI Consulting Presentation Pulls Back the Veil on Fossil Fuel PR

The 2015 slides describe “discrediting” science, “debunking” documentaries, and positioning its fracking industry project Energy In Depth “at the center of the shale boom’s biggest moments.”

By Sharon Kelly onFeb 7, 2022

Facebook post by Energy In Depth sharing a video with four Earths and arrows pointing up or down to show countries' carbon emissions

A screenshot of a 2016 Earth Day message from Energy In Depth, a fracking industry project of FTI Consulting and the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

“We understand how the oil and gas sector works — we’ve worked in it, studied it, defended it and impacted the policy that regulates it,” a 2015 presentation delivered to the Tennessee Oil and Gas Association begins. “We have been instrumental players in the industry’s highest profile business issues, regulatory hearings, legal disputes and arbitration.”

Those bona fides came not from an oil and gas company or investor, but from FTI Consulting, a sprawling consulting firm that markets its strategic communications services to a wide range of industries — including coal, oil, and gas producers.

FTI’s 2015 presentation, obtained by DeSmog, offers a rare glimpse at what PR firms offer to fossil fuel companies and how they work their messaging and strategies into news articles and headlines. It comes at a time when the PR industry has been wrestling with its role in the climate crisis. In January, the Clean Creatives campaign, which represents PR professionals concerned about their industry’s role in promoting fossil fuels, released a letter signed by 450 scientists. It calls on PR firms to drop fossil fuel clients and stop spreading what the letter described as “advertising and PR efforts by fossil fuel companies that seek to obfuscate or downplay our data and the risks posed by the climate crisis.”

FTI’s claim in the 2015 presentation to have been instrumental for the oil industry isn’t bluster. In November 2020, a New York Times investigation found that “FTI has been involved in the operations of at least 15 current and past influence campaigns promoting fossil-fuel interests in addition to its direct work for oil and gas clients.”

“This is pretty damning.”

Melissa Aronczyk, Rutgers University professor

This is reflected in the 2015 presentation, in which FTI touted its connections to dozens of fossil fuel and chemical companies, including Shell, Halliburton, and Range Resources, and lists groups like the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the Shale Resource Centre Canada, and the Center for Liquified Natural Gas under the heading “redefining communications support.” The presentation focuses on what is perhaps FTI’s best-known project for the fossil fuel industry: Energy In Depth, a project that’s served as a “rapid response platform” for the shale industry.

Outside experts called the presentation revealing.

“PR firms — I guess FTI Consulting is also strategic management — they don’t want to ever be seen officially to be very overtly trying to control the conversation,” Melissa Aronczyk, a professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, told DeSmog. “They want to be able to say, ‘no, no, we’re just producing our facts, we’re just producing our evidence and using the statistics that are out there.’”

“And so this is pretty damning,” she added.

Entering FTI’s World

A major focus of FTI’s 2015 presentation, mentioned on more than 20 of its 45 slides, is Energy In Depth, which calls itself a “research, education and public outreach campaign” that was“launched jointly by FTI and Independent Petroleum Assn. of America (IPAA) in 2009” and is “specifically focused on” shale and fracking. In 2011, DeSmog obtained a leaked memo crediting fossil fuel companies including BP, Anadarko, Shell, Halliburton, and others, as well as trade associations, including IPAA and the American Petroleum Institute, with “early financial commitments” without which “the ‘Energy In Depth’ project would not be possible.”

FTI’s 2015 presentation tallies more than 1,100 Energy In Depth “rebuttals” and 600,000-plus Google hits for Energy In Depth, and claims the initiative was “at the center of the shale boom’s biggest moments.”

To enter the world of Energy In Depth’s messaging, as seen in FTI’s 2015 presentation, is to enter a world where “the facts about methane emissions” show that the greenhouse gas pollution from “some of the most prolific” U.S. oil and gas fields had dropped “considerably.” Graphs show carbon dioxide and methane emissions plunging as shale gas production takes off. “Happy Earth Day! From Energy In Depth,” an accompanying video still reads.

A screenshot from FTI Consulting’s May 2015 presentation.

“It sounds like a happy story because it looks like CO2 emissions are going down,” said Ben Franta, an attorney and director of accountability research for the Climate Social Science Network, when asked about FTI’s slides on methane. “But, of course, what matters is the entire global warming effect from all greenhouse gases.”

Today, we know that methane levels in the atmosphere were on the rise in 2015 — and they’ve continued to climb since then, in no small part due to the oil and gas industry’s leaks and routine “venting” of unburned methane. “After a plateau which began in 1999, concentrations of the gas in the atmosphere started rising again in 2007, a trend that continues to this day,” the Economist reported last year. “Both ground-based and aerial studies show that leaky natural-gas pipes are one culprit.”

Methane matters enormously because it’s a powerful and fast-acting greenhouse gas that’s partly responsible for the climate crisis shifting into high gear. In recent years, natural gas–fired power plants have increasingly displaced coal-fired plants.

Franta pointed to the broader PR industry’s involvement in fossil fuel climate messaging for decades. “The idea of promoting natural gas as a climate solution goes back to at least the late ’80s as well,” he said. “In some of the fossil fuel industry’s internal documents, they identify various strategies they can use to look like they’re addressing climate change while actually keeping fossil fuels dominant in the market — and one of those strategies is, promote more natural gas.”

But that, as an August 2021 editorial in the scientific journal Nature explains, has come at “a cost to the climate,” since methane has contributed as much as 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit of today’s global warming, compounding the problems caused by the most closely tracked greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.

“PR professionals have been helping the industry craft its messages and those messages have been designed to create delay,” Franta said. “Looking at the presentation, it seems pretty clear that Energy In Depth — and FTI who’s behind that — is playing a role in not telling the whole story about fossil gas.”

Debunk and Discredit

FTI’s understanding of its own work in 2015 appears to have included, in the presentation’s words, “debunking” prominent documentaries and “discrediting” scientific research.

The presentation includes slides about FTI’s work “Debunking Gasland,” referring to an award-winning 2010 documentary that explores the environmental consequences of fracking and its 2013 sequel. Energy In Depth claims credit for launching a 35-minute video dubbed “Truthland,” “to combat Gasland,” adding that they “executed a 60-stop screening tour in 20 states.”

One subsequent slide is devoted to “discrediting the Duke Methane Studies,” a collection of scientific research from Duke University into the shale industry’s environmental impacts. On the slide’s left, a news headline reads “Pennsylvania fracking called peril to water,” while on the right, a bolded passage from a different article suggests water problems were “unrelated to nearby fracking wells.” An arrow bearing Energy in Depth’s logo draws the eye from the left side of the slide to the right.

A screenshot from FTI Consulting’s 2015 presentation highlight its efforts to cast doubt on scientific studies.

In the years since, Duke’s early research has in fact held up well within the scientific community, with the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences listing hundreds of citations of the paper pictured, including 72 within the past two years.

“Our research, it’s meant to be criticized and it’s meant to be talked about,” said Nathaniel Warner, a Penn State University professor and lead author of the 2012 study pictured on FTI’s slideshow. “And if somebody comes up with a way in which to disprove it by doing a scientific study then that’s great and that’s okay. But most of these are more — I don’t know — they’re more just trying to suggest things that could be wrong and not necessarily go about demonstrating that they are wrong.”

“I thought I was going to be kind of a champ for industry here,” Warner added, explaining that some, though not all, of the paper’s findings on water contamination had actually proved favorable for industry.

The FTI presentation is by Katie Brown, then an Energy In Depth spokesperson according to the slides, which add that she previously worked for “an education campaign” for the Keystone XL pipeline.Brown also authored numerous Energy In Depth posts, such as this July 2015 piece on methane leaks whose description of a set of scientific studies published by a number of universities and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) was so flawed that EDF, which coordinated the series, put out a response calling Energy In Depth’s work “flat wrong” and a “willful misrepresentation of the findings.”

Seeding a Response

FTI’s 2015 presentation is also noteworthy because it doesn’t just look backwards at Energy In Depth’s work to date. It also looks forward, identifying a handful of what FTI called “priority issues” — that is, potential crises that might hit the industry.

That look forward illustrates an area where Aronczyk, co-author of the new book A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism, said polluting industries have historically tended to outperform environmentalists.

PR firms, she explained, developed the practice of “issue management,” strategically tackling long-term liabilities and simmering problems that could one day boil over. That strategy involves laying the groundwork so their clients — in this case, oil and gas companies — will have an early entry into debates that could impact regulation. More generally, the strategy is meant to burnish an industry’s or company’s credibility in areas where their operations are likely to cause bigger headaches down the road.

“Wherever you see Energy In Depth as part of the conversation, that’s where the problem is.”

Melissa Aronczyk

FTI’s first “priority issue” slide focuses on earthquakes — a problem that is indeed still plaguing the oil and gas industry.

In 2015, there was still debate over whether fracking directly caused earthquakes, and regulators were just starting to scrutinize the role played by the oil and gas industry’s wastewater disposal practices. In April 2015, a month before FTI’s presentation, the state of Oklahoma had acknowledged for the first time that the oil and gas industry was likely responsible for a massive surge in earthquakes that had begun rattling the state.

“They see that it’s a problem waiting to explode because the more earthquakes that happen, the more people are going to panic and cause some sort of reckoning,” Aronczyk told DeSmog. She pointed to a CBS News interview highlighted in FTI’s presentation, explaining that “they’re showing how their Energy In Depth spokesperson is already talking about it and saying, ‘we’re sharing science, we’re cooperating, we’re part of this conversation, we’re in the mix’.… They’re seeding, essentially, their future response so that when the crisis hits, they’ve already got everything in place to respond.”

FTI tagging earthquakes as a “priority issue” proved prescient. The temblors have indeed continued in Oklahoma — and the United States Geological Survey has even noted that they are “known to be induced by hydraulic fracturing” — though their numbers dropped after state regulators placed curbs on the oil and gas industry’s wastewater disposal practices. More importantly, that strategic approach suggests that Energy In Depth’s “priority issues” — which in 2015 also included local efforts to ban fracking and the Environmental Protection Agency’s closely watched research into fracking and water contamination — may offer clues to where bigger problems for oil and gas may be about to emerge.

“Wherever you see Energy In Depth as part of the conversation,” said Aronczyk, “that’s where the problem is.”

The Climate Threat

It’s worth bearing in mind that FTI is not simply a PR firm and that many of its clients are not fossil fuel companies. A May 2015 FTI investor presentation shows that a mere 10 percent of FTI’s first quarter 2015 revenues came from its “strategic communications” work. According to this presentation, a majority of the firm’s revenue came from other activities like consulting on economics and litigation or working on bankruptcies and corporate finance.

But this sliver of work might pose a potential risk to FTI’s overall operations. The company’s public climate-related policies show the firm’s management is aware of the risks it faces from climate change, including potential damage to its reputation. “FTI Consulting recognizes that climate change is a global threat,” an Environmental Responsibility and Climate Change Disclosure Policy released by FTI in March 2021 says, “and one of the most significant environmental challenges of our time.”

Towards the end of 2021, the firm also acknowledged climate change directly in its first-ever corporate sustainability report. The report referred to the “ongoing climate crisis” and observed that FTI itself “may be indirectly affected from a reputational standpoint based on work we do for our clients in high emissions industries.”

“Reputational risk is critically important to our firm and brand because our ability to attract and retain leading experts, as well as our retention by global clientele including on their own reputational risks, is driven by our own reputation,” FTI’s report adds. In other words, the firm is aware that its reputation is key to hiring experts and retaining clients who are conscious of their own reputations.

Climate campaigners were quick to point out the disconnect between FTI’s climate messaging and FTI’s public relations work for fossil fuel firms.

“If climate change is a global threat,” Duncan Meisel, director of the Clean Creatives campaign, said in an email to DeSmog, “fossil fuel companies are a global threat.”

“They are primarily responsible for the growth of global carbon pollution, and it’s irresponsible for FTI to retain them as clients, particularly in this capacity,” Meisel continued. “Simply put, we cannot stop the climate emergency in a world where these companies continue to grow, and that is what they hire FTI to help them do.”

FTI declined to say whether it would heed Clean Creatives’ call.“As a matter of policy, we do not comment on client engagements,” Matthew Bashalany, head of FTI’s global media relations, said in an email.

FTI did however provide a response to our inquiry regarding the Duke methane studies. “Just for background information and factual context regarding the slide you referenced below, I thought it would be helpful to include a sample of what third-party, independent researchers and government agencies said about the conclusions of the paper you cited following its release back in 2011,” FTI’s spokesperson wrote.

He offered links to two news articles and three scientific publications that cast doubt on the broader series of Duke methane studies. “The slide covered the series,” he clarified in an email.

The scientific publications, however, included a study that carries a correction because its lead author had failed to disclose that he was “funded privately by Chesapeake [Energy] for this work” and omitted information about the other two authors’ ties to fossil fuel companies.

FTI’s work through Energy In Depth has drawn congressional attention in recent years. “Here in Congress, we can’t keep dancing to the tune of this crowd,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said in a December 2020 speech discussing FTI’s work for fossil fuel clients. “It is on us whether this web of denial will hold us back or whether we will break free at last of its corrupting influence and do, for once — for once — our duty instead of its bidding.”

ENERGY SCIENCE DENIAL

===

desmog

tactics used by PR firms include paid media campaigns, earned media placements, so-called grassroots events (or astroturfing), and social media campaigns. DeSmog and others in climate journalism have long been working to expose how corporate interests employ these PR industry techniques to manipulate public opinion on climate and energy, from Edelman’s 2014 work on behalf of a TransCanada tar sands pipeline to FTI Consulting’s recent efforts to sell hydrogen and natural gas as climate solutions.

===

recall exxon busted (UK?) and promised to stop funding denial so shift to buffer/front/trade:

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

many docs grafs

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 the 1998 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 theImperial 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 Actand 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 “Techical 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 the National 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.

===

===

https://theintercept.com/2019/08/23/monsanto-republicans-cancer-research

EMAILS SHOW MONSANTO ORCHESTRATED GOP EFFORT TO INTIMIDATE CANCER RESEARCHERS https://theintercept.com/staff/leefang/" Lee Fang< ...the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified glyphosate, an active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, as a “probable carcinogen,” setting off a global debate about the world’s most popular weedkiller.

Over the last four years, Republicans in Congress have excoriated and pushed to defund the IARC, casting their defense of the chemical as a quest on behalf of small American farmers. Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has written that his outrage over the cancer research is on behalf of the “farmers and food manufacturers who rely on traditional farming methods to produce the food that fuels America — and the world.”

But according to a recent trove of documents, the ongoing political assault on the IARC has been scripted in part by Monsanto, the St. Louis-based chemical and seed conglomerate that produces Roundup and Roundup-resistant crops.

Roundup has been cash cow for the company since the 1970s, fueling billions of dollars in annual profits. Its use has skyrocketed in recent decades since the company developed genetically modified corn and other crops that are resistant to it; it is now the world’s leading herbicide.

A growing number of individuals say that Monsanto failed to warn consumers of the dangers of using Roundup and had marketed the chemical spray as harmless to humans, while internally recommending that its own employees use gloves and protective gear. Critics say that the Roundup formula used in the U.S. also contains a surfactant that makes the herbicide far more toxic than the variation of the spray sold in the European market.

Monsanto, which merged with German multinational pharmaceutical company Bayer AG last year, is facing as many as 11,000 cases relating to glyphosate. Last year, Dewayne Johnson, a former groundskeeper now dying of cancer, was the first to win his jury trial in San Francisco state court against Monsanto, alleging that years of using Roundup contributed to his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Johnson was awarded $289 million by a jury, though a judge later reduced the amount to $78 million. Another plaintiff, Edwin Hardeman, also alleged that he spent decades spraying the glyphosate-based weedkiller with little to no protective gear and developed the same blood cancer, won a similar case in federal court this year.

[Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson after hearing the verdict in his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court of California in San Francisco on Aug. 10, 2018.

Photo: Josh Edelson, Pool/AP]

The newly disclosed files, released by a plaintiff’s law firm, Baum Hedlund, include company emails, documents, and deposition transcripts showing that Monsanto lawyers and lobbyists guided lawmakers, coordinating efforts to question the IARC’s credibility and slash U.S. support for the international body.

The company has denied claims that its products cause cancer, and Monsanto lawyers have declared that Environmental Protection Agency’s designation of glyphosate as safe should clear the company of any legal liability. In a recent marketing campaign, Bayer touted its friendly cooperation with regulators as a sign that the public should have nothing to fear from its products.

But the documents also suggest that the firm has used its influence with lawmakers to antagonize regulators, applying pressure and investigative threats to shape the science used to research glyphosate and other controversial chemical compounds, as part of a larger campaign to silence critics and discredit the IARC.

IN JUNE 2015, Michael Dykes, then serving as Monsanto’s vice president of government affairs, laid out the company’s strategy for “managing the IARC issue,” following the cancer research center’s determination that March.

The company, he wrote in an email, had dispatched its team of lobbyists to brief “key staff at EPA, USTR, USDA, and the State Department as well as members of Congress” to raise concerns with the IARC’s scientific process, and with how the decision could impact agriculture as well as international trade. Lobbyists also met with an official at the Department of Health and Human Services; they saw the agency’s support as key “to secure a WHO clarification.”

Later in the year, Dykes updated the Monsanto team with plans to push back against the IARC, including the possible placement of advertisements — in the form of letters from third-party groups — in Capitol Hill newspapers, as well as preparation to use a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing as a venue to get the EPA to reaffirm support for glyphosate. “We will make sure Committee members ask EPA the glyphosate safety question,” Dykes wrote.

[Roundup weed killing products on May 14, 2019.

Photo Illustration: Scott Olson/Getty Images

The following year,FTI Government Affairs, one of several consulting firms guiding Monsanto’s political response to the IARC decision, assisted GOP lawmakers with an effort to investigate U.S. support for the IARC.

In one email sent by Todd Rands, a former Monsanto attorney working with FTI, sent a draft of a letter ostensibly written by Rep. Rob Aderholt, R-Ala., a senior lawmaker on the House Appropriations Committee, addressed to Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes for Health. NIH is the government agency responsible for most federal public health research and is the largest funder to the IARC. The letter, in fact, had been written by FTI consultants, along with Rands’s edits, accordingto his deposition testimony.

The FTI-written letter declared that glyphosate “does not cause cancer,” accused the IARC of peddling “bunk science,” and threatened a reassessment of the NIH budget to ensure that the agency is “committed to only funding organizations that produce information and conclusions based on sound science, robust processes, and credible methodology.”

During his deposition, Rands said that he believed it appropriate for Monsanto to draft a letter on behalf of a lawmaker to NIH, calling such ghostwriting a “common practice in Washington.”

It’s not clear what Aderholt’s office did with the FTI-authored letter. Aderholt’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept. On June 2, 2016, Aderholt sent a letter to NIH to request a briefing on the IARC’s designation of glyphosate as a probable carcinogen and “the standards that NIH places on research funded by the U.S. taxpayers,” a letter that mirrored many of the demands in the FTI letter, though it used different language.

More GOP letters and demands for investigation over NIH’s funding for IARC followed. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, then-chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., Chaffetz’s successor as Oversight chair, and Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, then-chair of the House Science Committee, all called for inquiries into IARC funding and the designation of glyphosate as a carcinogen.

The Monsanto lobbyists closely conferred with the committees as they honed in on the IARC’s funding. Drew Feeley, an attorney for the GOP staff of the House Oversight Committee, emailed an FTI consultant to explain that his office was working to attach a line to a government budget bill designed “to apply to IARC” in order to slash its funding over the glyphosate issue. “Thanks again for coordinating,” Feeley wrote to the Monsanto consultant. Feeley, notably, is now serving as an attorney with the Council on Environmental Quality, the White House office that oversees environmental policy.

“We expect the House OGR investigation about IARC to expand as they move into the new administration,” wrote Rands, in an update to Monsanto colleagues.

Last year, under Smith, the House Science Committeedevoted an entire committee hearing into questioning the IARC,with a focus on its conduct around glyphosate. Smith subsequently sent more letters to cancer researchers in Norway, demanding they “correct the flaws in IARC.” The House Appropriations Committee followed up by cutting $2 million in funding to the IARC, a symbolic move to distance the U.S. from the international body, which relies on a budget of around $40 million from a range of member countries.

THE CONGRESSIONAL OUTREACH was only part of a multifaceted effort to control the backlash sparked by the IARC designation.

In recent years, a great deal of new information has come to light around Monsanto’s work to conceal the potential health risks around glyphosate. Earlier this month, new documents revealed that Monsanto operated a “fusion center” to discredit critics of the company, including former Reuters journalist Carey Gillam, who has written extensively about glyphosate. The operation even monitored and considered legal action again singer Neil Young, a critic of Monsanto.

Le Monde, the French newspaper, published an award-winning investigation on the controversy, referring to the Monsanto-run campaign to discredit the IARC as an effort to “intimidate” the cancer research center.

A separate cache of litigation files, released in May, revealed that Monsanto also contracted withHakluyt, a corporate intelligence firm, to keep close tabs on political elites in Washington. The company consulted with senior Trump and EPA officials, and confirmed that the administration would support Monsanto on glyphosate issues. “We have Monsanto’s back on pesticide regulation,” a domestic policy adviser in the White House told Hakluyt.

[pixA building on the campus of Monsanto headquarters in St. Louis on May 23, 2016.

Photo: Michael B. Thomas/AFP/Getty Images

The last year has exposed other cloak-and-dagger tactics. The company was criticized for ghostwriting scientific studies on the safety of glyphosate, which were presented as independent research. At the San Francisco civil trial over glyphosate, an FTI consultant working for Monsanto was caught posing as a journalist working for the BBC and another British outlet.

Andin 2017, one of the most stunning disclosures revealed that a senior EPA staffer, Jess Rowland, had quietly tipped Monsanto off to the fact that federal agencies had sought to reevaluate the safety of glyphosate, boasting to the company that he could “kill” federal investigations into glyphosate. Shortly before a crucial European Union vote on glyphosate products, the EPA suddenly released a report declaring the safety of the product. The document was later taken down because it had not yet been completed. One Monsanto official relayed to a colleague that Rowland had told him, “If I can kill this I should get a medal,” in regards to the glyphosate review conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a department of Health and Human Services.

After leaving the EPA, Rowland went to work in the private sector, consulting for chemical companies.

There’s also a revolving door between lawmakers supporting Monsanto and professionals working on behalf of the company.Shortly after retiring from Congress this year, following his investigation of the IARC, Lamar Smith took a job at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, a lobbying firm that represents Bayer-Monsanto’s interests in Washington.

*Correction, August 23, 12:00 p.m.:{ 

This story has been updated to clarify that Hardeman’s case was in federal court and that Rowland’s comments about killing a federal study of glyphosate referred to ASTDR.}:*

*Update, August 23, 2:30 p.m.

After publication, Bayer sent the following statement: “None of the documents cherry-picked by plaintiffs’ lawyers and their surrogates contradict the findings of the extensive body of science and conclusions of leading health regulators that glyphosate-based herbicides are safe when used as directed and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic. Instead, they show that Monsanto’s activities were intended to ensure there was a fair, accurate and science-based dialogue about the company and its products in response to significant misinformation. We take the safety of our products and our reputation very seriously and work to ensure that everyone – from regulators to customers to other stakeholders – has accurate and balanced information to make decisions about our products.”*

===

li links to range res?

Patrick Creighton, AEA Communications Director,Worked For Bush And Pennsylvania Republicans. Patrick Creighton was the special assistant to Samuel T. Mok, the chief financial officer at the Department of Labor from 2004 to 2006. He then worked as a spokesman for oil and natural gas advocate Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) from 2006 to 2009, worked to elect Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), then joined Thompson’s office until May 2009. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-creighton-454a376?trk=pub-pbmap

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/08/22/174407/dirty-energy-town-hall/

aug 09 bus tour:

he American Energy Alliance (AEA), a new polluter front group, is touring the nation to smear President Barack Obama’s clean energy reform agenda. Employees riding the “American Energy Express” bus are spreading the conservative lies that the American Clean Energy and Security Act will “cripple our sluggish economy.” AEA is the 501 c(4) offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research, a right-wing oil-industry think tank run by Robert Bradley, a former speechwriter for Kenneth Lay. E&E News reports that AEA’s “Energy Town Hall” bus tour pictures workers in hard hats:

The American Energy Alliance, which is affiliated with the conservative Institute for Energy Research, has begun a four-week bus tour to county fairs, sporting events and public meetings in several coal-reliant states. Representatives of the group will travel in a large blue bus carrying the slogan “Stop the National Energy Tax, Save American Jobs” and a picture of workers in hard hats. They will cross Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, AEA officials participated in a rally with another group, Americans for Prosperity, in Zanesville, Ohio; a day earlier, they visited a county fair in western Pennsylvania.

In fact, by attacking legislation that addresses climate change and our national dependence on fossil fuels, AEA is preventing a clean-energy economic boom. Laughably, AEA claims it has “no ties to any political party“:

AEA has no ties to any political party, and it has no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party.

AEA may be telling the truth that it has “no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party” — its only interest seems to be blocking progressive reform by spreading lies and distortions. However, AEA is tightly connected to the Republican Party and right-wing oil interests. In fact, all of its employees are former House Republican staffers:

Thomas J. Pyle, AEA President, Is A Oil Lobbyist And DeLay Operative. Before joining the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, Pyle worked as a lobbyist for the right-wing oil giant Koch Industries, first in-house starting in 2001, and then at the Rhoads Group. In 2008 Pyle became a lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Previously, Pyle served as policy analyst for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the GOP Congressional Western Caucus. Pyle started as a legislative assistant for radical anti-environmentalists Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA). [Institute for Energy Research, Center for Public Integrity]

Patrick Creighton, AEA Communications Director, Worked For Bush And Pennsylvania Republicans. Patrick Creighton was the special assistant to Samuel T. Mok, the chief financial officer at the Department of Labor from 2004 to 2006. He then worked as a spokesman for oil and natural gas advocate Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) from 2006 to 2009, worked to elect Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), then joined Thompson’s office until May 2009. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

...

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Managing Director

FTI Consulting

March 2014 – Present (2 years 2 months)

FTI Consulting

Senior Director

FTI Consulting

March 2012 – March 2014 (2 years 1 month)

FTI Consulting

Vice President

FTI Consulting

July 2010 – March 2012 (1 year 9 months)

Institute for Energy Research

Communications Director

Institute for Energy Research

May 2009 – June 2010 (1 year 2 months)

U.S. House of Representatives

Communications Director

U.S. House of Representatives

2006 – 2009 (3 years)

--

pat c scrape:

Ryan Clancy

Managing Director at FTI Consulting Strategic Communications

Ana Heeren

Senior Director at FTI Consulting

Lawrence Pacheco

Seasoned strategic communications consultant at FTI Consulting

Brian Kennedy

Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting - Strategic Communications

FTI Consulting, Inc. is a global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance enterprise value in an increasingly complex legal, regulatory and economic environment. With more than 3,700 employees located in 22 countries, FTI Consulting professionals work closely with clients to anticipate, illuminate and overcome complex business challenges in areas such as investigations, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory issues, reputation management and restructuring.

Brian Kennedy is a senior managing director and global head of the Energy & Natural Resources Sector in FTI's Strategic Communications division. In his capacity as a global sector leader, he oversees a team of financial, corporate, issues and crisis communications professionals who help clients develop and execute strategies around operational crises, investigations, transactions, shareholder activism, major litigation, legislative and regulatory challenges, and other threats to enterprise value.

Experience

FTI Consulting

Global Head, Energy & Natural Resources Sector

FTI Consulting

January 2009 – Present (7 years 4 months)Washington D.C. Metro Area

Institute for Energy Research

Senior Vice President

Institute for Energy Research

January 2008 – August 2009 (1 year 8 months)

Press Secretary

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), U.S. House of Representatives

December 2006 – January 2008 (1 year 2 months)

Deputy Chief of Staff & Director of Communications

Committee on Resources, U.S. House of Representatives

March 2003 – December 2006 (3 years 10 months)

Legislative Correspondent

U.S. Representative George Radanovich (R-CA)

November 1998 – December 1999 (1 year 2 months)

---

James McInerney

Senior Director at FTI Consulting

Experience

FTI Consulting

Senior Director

FTI Consulting

October 2012 – Present (3 years 7 months)Washington D.C. Metro Area

I advise senior executives at energy companies on business strategy related to energy assets, transactions, and interactions with government regulators. I help companies and coalitions navigate, and overcome, political and public affairs risks that threaten projects’ viability and affect bottom lines. I have worked with some of the largest energy producers in the world, including foreign corporations seeking to participate in the North American energy boom. My work at FTI includes helping companies adapt and maneuver in the rapidly evolving Global LNG market. I also have extensive experience managing energy companies’ relationships with foreign host governments and helping energy projects achieve regulatory approval without undue delay.

ExxonMobil

International Public & Government Affairs Advisor

ExxonMobil

August 2010 – October 2012 (2 years 3 months)Houston, Texas Area

At ExxonMobil I helped the company mitigate political risk and improve relations with host governments in East Africa, Southeast Asia, the Mideast, and the Americas. In various roles at ExxonMobil I was embedded with regional production operations teams and also worked extensively with the global LNG team on issues ranging from individual project permitting to international LNG portfolio strategy.

Garten Rothkopf

Climate Policy Consultant

Garten Rothkopf

2010 – 2010 (less than a year)

U.S. House of Representatives

Communications Director/Legislative Aide

U.S. House of Representatives

January 2004 – August 2008 (4 years 8 months)Washington D.C. Metro Area

Worked on legislative policy and communications strategy for CongresswomanEllen Tauscher and Congressman Dennis Cardoza.

Jackson Dunn

Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting

Elizabeth Alexander

Managing Director at FTI Consulting Strategic Communications

---

Matthew Dempsey

Senior Director at FTI Consulting

FTI Consulting

January 2013 – Present (3 years 4 months)Washington D.C. Metro Area

US Senate

March 2009 – January 2013 (3 years 11 months)

Allard for Senate

2001 – 2002 (1 year)

---

Steve Everley

Managing Director at FTI Consulting

Travis Windle

Managing Director at FTI Consulting

==

not staffer:

Marc Cunningham is Managing Director of the Energy & Natural Resources practice for FTI Consulting’s Strategic Communications business and is based in Houston, TX. FTI Consulting, Inc. is a global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance enterprise value in an increasingly complex legal, regulatory and economic environment. With more than 4,400+ employees in 26 countries on six continents, FTI Consulting has segments and practice areas in Corporate Finance/Restructuring, Economic Consulting, Forensic & Litigation Consulting, Technology and Strategic Communications.

In this capacity, Marc advises clients on critical communications and strategies facing enterprises during significant moments of change including mergers and acquisitions, divestments, IPOs, restructuring and financial issues, shareholder activism, investor relations and proxy advisory.

Specialties:

Strategic Communications | Investor Relations | Commercial Transactions | Mergers | Asset Acquisitions | Divestitures | Joint Ventures | Restructurings | Shareholder Activism | Proxy Advisory | Deal Structuring | Negotiations | New Business Development | Relationship Management | Stakeholder Management | Strategy | Upstream Oil & Gas | Midstream Oil & Gas | LNG | Investment Proposals | Corporate Finance | Equity Research | Investment Banking

Experience

Shell

Manager, NBD and Deal Delivery | Upstream Americas

Shell

January 2014 – January 2015 (1 year 1 month)Houston, Texas Area

Shell

Business Development Manager, LNG Americas

Shell

January 2012 – January 2014 (2 years 1 month)Houston, Texas Area

Shell

Manager, Portfolio Americas - Downstream Strategy & Portfolio

Shell

June 2007 – January 2012 (4 years 8 months)Houston, Texas Area

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation

Investor Relations Manager

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation

September 2006 – May 2007 (9 months)

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation

Sr. Staff Corporate Development Advisor

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation

February 2006 – September 2006 (8 months)

• Member of deal team responsible for the acquisitions of Kerr-McGee and Western Gas Resources

Noble Energy

Offshore Finance Manager

Noble Energy

July 2004 – January 2006 (1 year 7 months)Houston, Texas Area

Noble Energy

Coordinator, Business Development

Noble Energy

January 2003 – June 2004 (1 year 6 months)Houston, Texas Area

Noble Energy

Business Analyst

Noble Energy

February 2002 – January 2003 (1 year)Houston, Texas Area

RBC Capital Markets

Analyst, Global Investment Banking - Energy

RBC Capital Markets

January 2001 – November 2001 (11 months)Houston, Texas Area

RBC Capital Markets

Analyst, Global Equity Resarch Group - Energy

RBC Capital Markets

February 2000 – January 2001 (1 year)Houston, Texas Area

*==

Contact: Marc Morano (marc_morano@epw.senate.gov) Matt Dempsey (matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov) 

==

*

Republicans challenge Steyer's credibility

Steyer has also seen his name mentioned in the conservatives' discussion of the Oregon allegations. One of the Californian's nonprofit groups gave funds to the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation, which in turn paid a portion of Hayes' fellowship fees at the Clean Economy Development Center of Washington, D.C., one of the contracts under scrutiny. But those ties are unlikely to dissuade other Democrats from accepting contributions from other Steyer-backed organizations, such as NextGen Climate.

"It's not going to keep Democrats from wanting to have many millions of dollars spent in their respective Senate race or House race," Skelley said.

But Matt Dempsey, a former aide to Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and senior director at FTI Consulting, suggested that Steyer could see a ripple effect from the investigation.

"The real issue here is Tom Steyer's involvement and what this means for him moving forward in 2016," Dempsey said.

"This just adds more fuel to the fire with how closely these environmental groups" have become to local and state government, Dempsey added. "It affects Steyer's credibility."

Still, others predicted that the scandal will blow over well before the 2016 election.

"It remains to be seen, but based on the allegations as we've heard them, it will be difficult for Republicans to explain them and sustain anger about them for a 20-month period," said Josh Kardon, an energy lobbyist at Capitol Counsel and former chief of staff to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden (D).

Not that Republicans won't try.

Inhofe said yesterday that the Oregon allegations should prompt closer analysis of the renewable energy industry and climate change policies.

"This is just another example of environmental activist groups attempting to influence policy under a veil of secrecy and one more reason these groups merit additional scrutiny," Inhofe said in a statement. "Beneath the violation of public trust by the Oregon state officials, we have far-left foundations funneling significant funds to an environmental group to orchestrate this type of activism without any public disclosure."

In the meantime, despite Kitzhaber's decision to abort his fourth term in office, Democrats in Oregon have vowed to push ahead with at least one policy initiative that Hayes has championed: a measure to extend Oregon's Clean Fuels Program, which would otherwise expire at the end of the year.

Oregon's Democratic-controlled Senate approved the bill Tuesday despite an attempt by Republicans to put the measure before voters directly, citing the ongoing criminal investigations (*ClimateWire*, Feb. 18). The bill next goes to the state House, which Democrats similarly control.

==

William J. Nolan is a Senior Managing Director in the FTI Consulting Corporate Finance/Restructuring practice and is based in Charlotte. Mr. Nolan has worked in all areas of corporate recovery, including working with senior management in business turnarounds and corporate bankruptcy. He has more than twenty years of diverse financial consulting and management experience.

Mr. Nolan has considerable experience working with senior management teams in the areas of financial and operational restructuring, loan workouts and business planning. He has assisted management in developing business plans, devising short to medium term financial strategies and projections for use in troubled debt restructures, and implementing controls over cash expenditures, overhead and operating costs.

Mr. Nolan’s diverse background extends into financial services; manufacturing; restaurants; healthcare, and real estate wherein he has served as advisor to companies, and advised secured creditors, and unsecured creditors committees in out-of-court and in bankruptcy distressed situations. Mr. Nolan has considerable mortgage banking experience and has been very active in the reorganization of many sub-prime lending concerns.

Mr. Nolan also has extensive experience in working in international insolvencies and workouts. As a member of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) United Kingdom insolvency practice, Mr. Nolan gained experience in the specialized area of UK insolvency, working as a receiver and administrator. Mr. Nolan’s UK experience included managing and selling companies, including companies associated with Polly Peck International, one of the UK’s largest ever insolvencies.

Prior to its acquisition by FTI Consulting, Mr. Nolan served as a partner in the U.S. division of PwC’s Business Recovery Services group. Prior to joining PwC, Mr. Nolan held an executive financial management position with the Pizza Hut division of PepsiCo. As a financial manager of over 300 Pizza Huts in the state of Ohio, Mr. Nolan was responsible for identifying under-performing stores and working with local management to improve their performance as well as developing and implementing plans to eliminate excess operating costs and preparing and executing annual operating and financial budgets.

Mr. Nolan co-authored two articles in the American Banker entitled “The Fight for Survival: Sub-prime Lending, Where to From Here” and “At What Point Are Servicing Rights Born?”

Mr. Nolan holds an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in economics from the University of Delaware. He is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors and the International Bankruptcy Association. Mr. Nolan served as treasurer of the Delaware Valley Chapter of Turnaround Management Association.

==

CLIMATE:

Steyer and allies to visit White House, as GOP roasts their report

Elana Schor, E&E reporter

Greenwire: Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer today stepped back into the Capitol Hill spotlight with a new report on climate change's economic risks that netted him a White House sit-down and fresh jabs from Republicans as well as industry.

Unveiled by Steyer, ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson this morning, the "Risky Business" report warns that federal inaction in the face of global warming's escalating on-the-ground dangers has imposed an "unfunded mandate" upon businesses and localities to prepare for the worst. Paulson and Steyer are set to join other "risk committee" reviewers of the report at a meeting with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew tomorrow, a White House official confirmed this morning.

"We need strong policy action to prevent the worst outcomes, and that takes action by a national government," Paulson told the media alongside Steyer, Bloomberg and other reviewers this morning. The trio collaborated on the new report, Paulson added, in the hopes "that business will unite and be more active in pressing for policy change from the federal government."

Even as Steyer presses an apolitical case against climate change through "Risky Business" -- which projects coastal property losses in excess of $100 billion if emissions continue on their current track, driving sea levels higher -- he is gearing up to spend upward of $50 million on seven midterm election races where environmental protection might prove a top-tier issue (*E&E Daily*, May 22).

The former hedge fund manager routed $7.1 million to his NextGen Climate Action Committee between early April and early June for those purposes, according to Federal Election Commission reports, with noted conservationist Larry Linden and the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees union each contributing $100,000.

NextGen's political committee spent $5.6 million during that period, FEC disclosures show, the bulk of it going to another super political action committee that raises and spends unlimited funds to support Democratic Senate candidates.

Steyer's campaign-trail activity while he advances the nonpartisan message of "Risky Business" did not escape notice in the GOP today.A top Senate Republican aide circulated early reports of Steyer's White House visit to charge Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) with hypocrisy for blasting the conservative Koch brothers but supporting the wealthy green activist.

"Sen. Reid will attack this billionaire's access to politicians, right?" Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), posted on Twitter. Reid "is totally cool with this," Stewart added.

Former Senate GOP aide Matt Dempsey of FTI Consulting, whose firm represents multiple industry clients, hammered Steyer and Bloomberg for touting a renewables-heavy solution to climate change, given their difference of opinion on the emissions benefits of phasing out coal in favor of natural gas (*Greenwire*, Apr. 30).

"This is a political campaign orchestrated to advance a radical no-energy-but-green-energy ideology," Dempsey said in a statement. "The greatest risk facing our communities and our economy is the potential for elected leaders to actually embrace this rhetoric without doing their homework."

In addition to those potshots, the "Risky Business" report received its fair share of hosannas from groups that have long pushed for federal action on climate change. Kim Glas, executive director of the labor-environmentalist BlueGreen Alliance, said in a statement that the report's "absolutely sobering" conclusions point to the need for a national carbon price.

In addition to tomorrow's meeting with Steyer and Paulson, White House advisers John Podesta and Valerie Jarrett plan today to host insurance industry officials for a discussion of extreme weather's economic toll.President Obama also plans to mark the one-year anniversary of his climate change speech at Georgetown University with an address to the League of Conservation Voters' annual dinner tomorrow night.

Twitter: @eschor | Email: eschor@eenews.net

==

wiki

FTI Consulting is a business advisory firm headquartered in Washington, DC. The company specializes in the fields of corporate finance and restructuring, economic consulting, forensic and litigation consulting, strategic communications and technology. Founded as Forensic Technologies International Ltd in 1982, FTI Consulting employs more than 4,400 staff in 26 countries.[1]

The firm was involved in the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers[2] and General Motors bankruptcies[3] and the investigation into the Bernard Madoff fraud.[4] As of September 2011, FTI Consulting had the largest restructuring business in the U.S.[5] In 2009, FTI Consulting was listed as one of the 100 fastest growing U.S. companies.[6]

Partnerships and Sponsorships

FTI Consulting has established partnerships with companies and organizations in several fields. It is a member of the World Economic Forum.[7] Some of the company's senior and regional leaders participate in the Forum's meetings, participating in several projects related to anti-corruption, energy and professional services principles.[8]

FTI Consulting is also a corporate sponsor of the New York Yankees.[3] In addition to this, FTI Consulting sponsors the professional golfers Charles Howell III[9] and Webb Simpson, the 2012 U.S. Open Champion and 2014 Ryder Cup team member.[9]

Acquisitions

The company added over 1,000 employees to its Forensic and Litigation Consulting ("FLC") division since the passing of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which excluded auditors from providing consulting work to their public clients.[10] FTI Consulting purchased PwC's U.S. Business Recovery Services Division ("BRS") in 2002, which at the time was the largest provider of bankruptcy, turnaround and business restructuring services in the United States.[11] The company purchased KPMG's Dispute Advisory Services in 2003.[12]

FTI acquired Ringtail Solutions Group in 2005.[13] Ringtail's signature product, the Ringtail Discovery Software Suite, provides e-discovery and document management tools to assist corporations and law firms during litigation engagements.

The company purchased Chicago-based Compass Lexecon in 2006.[14] The same year, the company acquired the London based communications consultancy Financial Dynamics ("FD").[15]FD is now referred to as the Strategic Communications Division of FTI.

In 2008, the Company purchased the Schonbraun McCann Group, a consulting firm based in New York and leading advisor to the Real Estate industry.

As of October 2011, the company has maintained the Compass Lexecon name.

In January 2014, FTI Consulting acquired London-based TLG Partners, which produced a series of annual thought leader indexes.[16][17][18]

==

CIC MAY NOT BE ALL

HARDLY ANY, SEE COC?

United States Chamber of Commerce Integrated Web Strategy 2008 $1,225,909.00

United States Chamber of Commerce Presentation Testing 2008 $452,450.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Crosscut Strategies 2018 $251,005.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Crosscut Strategies 2018 $451,005.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Greentech Media 2014 $161,363.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Greentech Media 2013 $206,338.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Blue Worldwide 2011 $410,790.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Tiger Communications 2011 $275,915.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Forum One Communications 2011 $160,200.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Tiger Communications 2010 $272,164.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Blake & Company 2010 $141,343.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Tiger Communications 2009 $277,035.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Pillsbury Winthrop 2009 $143,719.00

Solar Energy Industries Association Tiger Communications 2008 $282,561.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Bully Pullpit Interactive LLC 2018 $1,297,500.00

Nuclear Energy Institute APCO Worldwide 2017 $5,801,384.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Bully Pulpit Interactive 2017 $1,129,201.00

Nuclear Energy Institute APCO Worldwide 2016 $1,152,606.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Hill+Knowlton 2016 $1,624,600.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Kivvit 2016 $4,887,451.00

p 4

Nuclear Energy Institute Kivvit 2015 $7,231,176.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Hill+Knowlton 2015 $1,997,011.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Smith & Harroff Inc 2015 $931,512.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Hill+Knowlton 2014 $2,194,235.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Potomac Communications Group 2014 $486,715.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Smith & Harroff Inc 2014 $1,602,939.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Smith & Harroff Inc 2013 $1,876,578.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Hill+Knowlton 2013 $1,796,853.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Potomac Communications Group 2013 $462,956.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Hill+Knowlton 2012 $4,964,386.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Burson-Marsteller 2012 $294,414.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Smith & Harroff Inc 2012 $4,463,288.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Potomac Communications Group 2012 $491,602.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Smith & Harroff Inc 2011 $4,720,107.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Hill+Knowlton 2011 $4,107,578.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Luntz Global LLC 2011 $547,256.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Smith & Harroff Inc 2010 $1,867,491.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Hill+Knowlton 2010 $2,128,574.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Potomac Communications Group 2010 $403,107.00

Nuclear Energy Institute Smith & Harroff Inc 2009 $2,221,698.00

...page 8

National Association of Manufacturers DCI Group 2016 $1,851,461.00

National Association of Manufacturers Edelman 2016 $1,199,953.00

National Association of Manufacturers DCI Group 2015 $3,424,574.00

National Association of Manufacturers FTI Consulting 2015 $7,942,891.00

National Association of Manufacturers Mentzer Media Services 2015 $1,867,890.00

National Association of Manufacturers Democracy Data & Communications 2015 $1,582,784.00

National Association of Manufacturers Hamilton Place Strategies 2015 $1,441,979.00

National Association of Manufacturers DCI Group 2014 $1,770,200.00

National Association of Manufacturers Target Enterprises 2014 $1,425,743.00

National Association of Manufacturers IMGE 2014 $916,645.00

National Association of Manufacturers DCI Group 2013 $1,770,200.00

National Association of Manufacturers Multi Media Services 2012 $2,587,236.00

National Association of Manufacturers Edelman 2013 $1,610,413.00

National Association of Manufacturers Target Enterprises 2012 $1,443,489.00

National Association of Manufacturers Edelman 2012 $1,080,878.00

National Association of Manufacturers Gallatin Public Affairs 2012 $553,190.00

National Association of Manufacturers Target Enterprises 2010 $3,748,483.00

National Association of Manufacturers Target Enterprises 2011 $3,800,000.00

National Association of Manufacturers Cove Strategies 2010 $165,000.00

National Association of Manufacturers Target Enterprises 2009 $4,400,000.00

p 9

National Association of Manufacturers DCI Group 2008 $2,543,079.00

National Association of Manufacturers FleishmanHillard 2008 $402,500.00

Interstate Natural Gas Association of America Bracewell & Giuliani 2017 $204,109.00

Interstate Natural Gas Association of America Icemiller Strategies 2017 $120,000.00

Growth Energy GRP Buying 2018 $2,019,657.00

Growth Energy RCR 2018 $2,803,637.00

Growth Energy Plus Communications 2018 $1,826,908.00

Growth Energy NASCAR 2018 $2,000,000.00

Growth Energy NASCAR 2017 $3,500,000.00

Growth Energy NASCAR 2016 $5,600,000.00

Growth Energy FP1 Public Affairs 2017 $2,494,435.00

Growth Energy FP1 Public Affairs 2016 $2,464,619.00

Growth Energy RCR 2016 $3,963,615.00

Growth Energy RCR 2015 $2,131,950.00

Growth Energy NASCAR 2015 $5,600,000.00

Growth Energy America's Renewable Future 2015 $1,250,000.00

Growth Energy FUELSAMERICA 2015 $1,000,000.00

Growth Energy NASCAR 2014 $5,600,000.00

Growth Energy RCR 2014 $2,731,782.00

Growth Energy Americans United For Change 2014 $1,582,450.00

p 11

Edison Electric Institute Net Communications 2015 $750,599.00

Edison Electric Institute Sloane & Company 2015 $391,995.00

Edison Electric Institute Edelman 2013 $1,091,122.00

Edison Electric Institute Democracy Data & Communications 2014 $1,326,106.00

Edison Electric Institute R&R Partners 2013 $515,811.00

Edison Electric Institute Edelman 2012 $683,183.00

Edison Electric Institute Democracy Data & Communications 2012 $548,163.00

Edison Electric Institute GC Strategic Advocacy 2009 $543,940.00

American Wind Energy Association IMGE 2017 $727,470.00

Edison Electric Institute GC Strategic Advocacy 2008 $1,100,597.00

American Wind Energy Association Capital Counsel 2013 $250,328.00

American Wind Energy Association Revolution Media Group 2011 $1,046,395.00

American Wind Energy Association Elmendorf Strategies 2014 $180,000.00

American Wind Energy Association Rosen Group 2009 $334,995.00

American Wind Energy Association Revolution Media Group 2012 $1,722,452.00

American Petroleum Institute GSD&M 2018 $31,989,809.00

American Wind Energy Association New Media 2011 $744,274.00

American Petroleum Institute DDC Advocacy 2018 $7,735,244.00

American Petroleum Institute Pool House 2018 $3,299,340.00

American Petroleum Institute GSD&M 2017 $30,396,324.00

p12

American Petroleum Institute Blue Advertising 2016 $24,355,069.00

American Petroleum Institute Democracy Data & Communications 2017 $6,922,626.00

American Petroleum Institute Advocates Inc 2017 $4,039,363.00

American Petroleum Institute FleishmanHillard 2016 $9,515,924.00

American Petroleum Institute Democracy Data & Communications 2016 $6,738,577.00

American Petroleum Institute Advocates Inc 2016 $4,090,899.00

American Petroleum Institute Blue Advertising 2015 $26,890,598.00

American Petroleum Institute Designated Market Media 2015 $10,840,597.00

American Petroleum Institute FleishmanHillard 2015 $18,255,218.00

American Petroleum Institute Democracy Data & Communications 2015 $7,466,543.00

American Petroleum Institute Blue Advertising 2014 $28,272,065.00

American Petroleum Institute FleishmanHillard 2014 $17,254,064.00

American Petroleum Institute Designated Market Media 2014 $8,144,795.00

American Petroleum Institute Democracy Data & Communications 2014 $6,961,184.00

American Petroleum Institute Blue Advertising 2013 $32,834,698.00

American Petroleum Institute Designated Market Media 2013 $6,124,143.00

American Petroleum Institute FleishmanHillard 2013 $23,941,600.00

American Petroleum Institute Democracy Data & Communications 2013 $5,553,397.00

American Petroleum Institute Edelman 2012 $51,917,692.00

American Petroleum Institute FleishmanHillard 2012 $22,782,020.00

p13

American Petroleum Institute Designated Market Media 2012 $5,289,804.00

American Petroleum Institute Democracy Data & Communications 2012 $5,529,594.00

American Petroleum Institute Advocates Inc 2011 $5,430,224.00

American Petroleum Institute Edelman 2011 $68,306,448.00

American Petroleum Institute FleishmanHillard 2011 $4,846,056.00

American Petroleum Institute Democracy Data & Communications 2011 $4,089,200.00

American Petroleum Institute Edelman 2010 $63,228,379.00

American Petroleum Institute Advocates Inc 2010 $3,843,563.00

American Petroleum Institute Edelman 2009 $68,732,735.00

American Petroleum Institute Advocates Inc 2009 $3,138,667.00

American Petroleum Institute Edelman 2008 $75,207,455.00

American Petroleum Institute DC Navigators 2008 $2,300,000.00

American Natural Gas Alliance Glover Park 2014 $2,597,208.00

American Natural Gas Alliance Porter Novelli 2014 $683,645.00

American Natural Gas Alliance Porter Novelli 2013 $1,171,558.00

American Natural Gas Alliance Glover Park 2013 $2,777,189.00

American Natural Gas Alliance Gladstein Neandross & Associates 2013 $934,016.00

American Natural Gas Alliance Glover Park 2012 $2,963,161.00

American Natural Gas Alliance Dewey Square 2012 $738,957.00

American Natural Gas Alliance Dewey Square 2011 $1,475,506.00

p 15

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Just Add Firewater 2018 $771,978.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Singer Associates 2017 $4,080,436.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Edelman 2016 $1,595,348.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Dezenhall Resources 2017 $1,500,546.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Edelman 2014 $4,011,828.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Edelman 2015 $2,996,049.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers American Energy Alliance 2014 $350,000.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Edelman 2013 $3,034,064.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers American Energy Alliance 2013 $450,000.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Consumer Energy Alliance 2013 $522,500.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers American Energy Alliance 2012 $895,000.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Consumer Energy Alliance 2012 $790,000.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Creative Response Concepts 2012 $722,205.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Edelman 2012 $638,494.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Consumer Energy Alliance 2011 $1,045,000.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Prisim Public Affairs 2010 $250,194.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Eletricity DCI Group 2018 $247,277.00

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Bevendge Seay 2009 $168,678.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity DCI Group 2017 $490,770.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Democracy Data & Communications 2016 $1,093,877.00

p 16

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity DCI Group 2016 $673,111.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Stateside Associates 2016 $252,045.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity DCI Group 2015 $1,583,262.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Causeway Soultions 2015 $513,891.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Democracy Data & Communications 2015 $387,902.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Blueprint Communications 2015 $300,000.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Real Clear Holdings 2015 $346,000.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity DCI Group 2014 $2,083,525.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity NJI Media 2014 $313,775.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP 2014 $240,399.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Blueprint Communications 2014 $240,000.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity JDA Frontline 2013 $650,108.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity DCI Group 2013 $2,811,881.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity White and Partners 2012 $16,169,526.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity New Media Strategies 2012 $4,018,884.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Hawthorn Group 2012 $1,591,098.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity DCI Group 2012 $1,187,219.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity White and Partners 2011 $23,943,108.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity Hawthorn Group 2011 $2,008,860.00

American Coalition on Clean Coal Electricity R&R Partners 2011 $1,626,678.00

end?