API4bak

12 22 field error on 4

https://www.desmog.com/2023/01/19/fossil-fuel-groups-spent-millions-on-social-media-ads-spreading-climate-disinformation-during-cop27/

fossil fuel-linked groups spent around $4 million on Facebook and Instagram ads that spread false climate claims over the COP27 summit, a new report says.

The physical presence of more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists overshadowed the November conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, as world leaders, NGOs and activists gathered in a bid to accelerate global efforts to confront the climate crisis.

Analysis out today shows oil and gas interests were also busy online. Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) – the coalition behind the second “Deny, Deceive, Delay” report – has documented how PR companies, front groups and oil majors were actively spreading disinformation in the weeks leading up to and during the summit.

Researchers with the coalition’s COP27 Intelligence Unit identified over 3,700 ads sharing false claims on Facebook and Instagram, platforms owned by Meta. They also found a rise in content related to outright climate-science denial by ‘anti-woke’ pundits on Twitter, who pushed #ClimateScam and lines such as ‘climate is a hoax’.

Jennie King, head of climate research and response at the non-profit Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) think tank, which led the Intelligence Unit, said the events of 2022 had “turbocharged a global ecosystem of disinformation”.

“Russia’s war in Ukraine and its impact on energy supply chains have renewed anti-climate attacks globally, as vested interests falsely attribute blame for these events to the “cult of Net Zero,” King explained.

“Our report shows Big Oil continues to invest millions in digital advertising to launder their image as ‘climate champions’, while also promoting the necessity of fossil fuels.”

The coalition’s findings come nearly two years after a report by the UN’s climate science body, which found for the first time that “vested interests” were delaying efforts to tackle climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that actors representing “vested economic and political interests” had eroded support for climate policy by generating “rhetoric and misinformation that undermines science and disregards risk and urgency”.

Climate Denial ‘Comeback’

Big Oil companies Shell, Chevron and Exxon all ran ads in the run-up to the summit, but the majority were posted by PR and fossil fuel front groups.

The 850 organisations surveyed spent between $3-4 million on nearly 3,800 adverts on Facebook and Instagram between September 1 and November 23, the report found. Adverts promoted fossil fuels as affordable and reliable, and justified their ongoing use with arguments around energy independence.

Energy Citizens – a PR and lobby group for the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry the American Petroleum Institute – ran more daily ads than all the other pages combined, the analysis found. The ad campaign advocated for U.S. production of fossil gas and oil, citing nationalist arguments around ‘energy security’.

The analysis found that a number of U.S. based pages ended their ad campaigns after mid-term elections on November 8. However, the research found disinformation ramped up with ad campaigns from three industry PR groups: America’s Plastic Makers, funded by the American Chemistry Council, which describes itself as ‘the leading association representing the $553-billion U.S. chemicals industry’, and fossil fuel front groups Affordable Energy for New Jersey and Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future.

In addition, the Saudi Green Initiative had at least 13 live adverts around the summit, just as Saudi Arabia’s delegation was accused of pursuing a ‘strategy to keep the world hooked on oil.’

The findings come as Sultan Ahmed Jaber was announced as the new President for COP28, making the Dubai summit next year the first to be led by a current oil executive.

Ben Dennes, a researcher at the University of Exeter who specialises in environmental communication online, said the $4 million figure was just the “tip of the iceberg”.

The Meta ad library used in the analysis was a “black box”, with only ads deemed by Meta to relate to ‘social issues, elections or politics’ fully accessible.

There is “unclear and subjective guidance on what this means”, Dennes told DeSmog, adding that researchers were also unable to analyse Google Ads in the study as the service does not permit searches for misinformation and greenwashing content.

It was therefore possible that “certain greenwashing and misinformation content has slipped through the net”, Dennes said.

Culture Warriors Co-opt Climate

Alongside analysis of industry-linked advertising, researchers also documented climate disinformation on Twitter over a four week period from the end of October.

‘Anti-woke’ pundits and conspiracy theorists gained the most traction, the report found, and “often collaborate with a well-funded network of think tanks and pundits.”

Climate denial tropes such as ‘climate actors are alarmist’ and ‘climate change is a hoax’ also featured. Some posts targeted the “loss and damage” fund, established in Sharm-el-Sheikh to provide financial assistance to vulnerable nations most impacted by the climate crisis.

Researchers also found that the hashtag #ClimateScam spiked on Twitter with 362,000 mentions between July and December, raising concerns over a failure to prevent disinformation on the platform. The original content came from a non-verified account, but was then adopted by a number of verified account holders – including U.S. pundit Tom Fitton, a climate denier with two million followers.

The CAAD coalition is advocating for immediate steps to be taken by tech companies to stem the flow of climate delayism and “junk science”. It is also calling on governments and multilateral bodies to implement a “unified definition” of climate mis-and disinformation within UN key institutions.

“This research shows that climate disinformation isn’t going away and, in fact, it’s getting worse.

During COP, Twitter’s search engine pushed #ClimateScam as a top result without any justification for the data behind it,” said Erika Seiber, climate disinformation spokesperson at Friends of the Earth U.S.

“Until governments hold social media and ad companies accountable, and companies hold professional disinformers accountable, crucial conversations around the climate crisis are going to be put in jeopardy.”

Meta and Twitter were contacted for comment.

omg going on offense?! std/key API talking pt?

jj comm dr an 12 22

Fresh off posting the highest quarterly profit in its history, the U.S.-based fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil sued the European Union on Wednesday in an attempt to stop the bloc from imposing its recently approved windfall tax targeting major oil and gas companies.

The Financial Times, which first reported the new lawsuit, noted that the challenge takes aim at the European Council's "legal authority to impose the new tax—a power historically reserved for sovereign countries—and its use of emergency powers to secure member states' approval for the measure."

:{"The new tax is due to take effect from December 31 and will apply a levy of at least 33% on any taxable profits in 2022-23 that are 20% or more above average profits between 2018 and 2021," the newspaper explained.

In a statement, Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton insisted the company recognizes that sky-high energy costs are "weighing heavily on families and businesses" but claimed the tax would "undermine investor confidence, discourage investment and increase reliance on imported energy."

Reuters reported Wednesday that Exxon's chief financial officer has estimated the E.U.'s windfall tax could cost the corporation around $2 billion through the end of next year—a fraction of the company's 2022 profits.

Approved in late September amid a mounting cost-of-living crisis across Europe, the windfall tax was presented as an effort to generate additional revenue to "provide financial support to households and companies" struggling with high energy costs.Oil and gas companies like Exxon have been accused of exploiting global energy market chaos spurred by Russia's war on Ukraine to hike prices and pad their bottom lines.

In late October, Exxon announced it brought in $19.7 billion in profits from July to September, its largest-ever quarterly haul. The company also announced it would raise its dividend and expand its share buyback program, rewarding wealthy investors as consumers continue to face elevated prices at the pump.

According to a recent filing, Exxon has also been rewarding its top executives, boosting the annual salary of CEO Darren Woods from $1.70 million to $1.88 million for the coming year.

ff ceo memo, not just br fuel

https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2022-12-09.COR_Supplemental_Memo-Fossil_Fuel_Industry_Disinformation.pdf

...examples.”57

API’s publicly released Climate Action Framework does not state that it is intended to promote natural gas.

API’s inconsistent internal and external messaging is common in the oil and gas industry, which advocates for government financial support for carbon capture technologiesas a climate mitigation initiative—without public acknowledgement that the support entrenches reliance on fossil fuels, thereby directly benefiting the companies’ business-as-usual operation and delaying the transition to clean energy.58 An October 9, 2018, letter to members of the National Petroleum Council (NPC) from John Mingé, BP America President and Chairman of the NPC Committee on Carbon Capture, Use, and Storage (CCUS), highlights the disconnect between the industry’s public and private rhetoric.

The letter highlights an NPC carbon capture study finding that incorporating CCUS into “U.S. energy and environment plans would deliver benefits,” including “[i]ncreased usage of existing US fossil fuel resources, protecting state and federal revenue sources and supporting the license to operate.”59 Those self-interested benefits to the fossil fuel industry are only noted internally to work group members, and are not mentioned in the NPC’s 2019 public report.Instead, the public report is presented as an altruistic effort to help the world provide “affordable, reliable energy.”60 Other internal documents refer to industry’s need for financial help from the government to develop a carbon capture industry in support of the license to continue to pump fossil fuels.61

B. Presenting Natural Gas as a Bridge Fuel to Secure its Future as a Destination Fuel

In 2021, natural gas contributed to 34% of U.S. energy-related emissions and 22% of emissions globally. 62 Documents obtained by the Committee show fossil fuel companies and lobbying groups seek to publicly position natural gas as a clean source of energy and part of the transition to renewables, even as the industry is privately planning for expanded natural gas production over the long term. In November 2017, a group of major oil companies, including Exxon, Shell, and BP, announced “Methane Guiding Principles.” The group acknowledged, “Since natural gas consists mainly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, its part in the transition to a low-carbon future will be influenced by the extent to which the oil and gas industry reduces it methane emissions.” 63 Yet internal Shell documents suggest that the companies initially intended this document to serve as a defense of the long-term use of natural gas well beyond a mere “transition.”

In a September 29, 2017, email, Dick Francis, Manager of Regulatory Policy for Shell Exploration & Production Company, distributed the first draft of the Guiding Principles document to his Shell colleagues, writing: Also included in the document is an important preamble that clearly makes the case for natural gas and identifies the need to address methane emissions. Linking the natural gas preamble to the principles is an important element. Because supporting the principles will also signal acknowledgment of natural gas’s place in a low carbon future. Internal BP documents from 2017 and 2018 reveal that the company engaged a public relations firm—the Brunswick Group—to develop an advocacy campaign for gas and methane.64

A PowerPoint presentation prepared by Phil Drew, a Partner at the Brunswick Group, was presented to Robert Stout,BP’s Vice President & Head of Regulatory Affairs, and Mary Streett, BP’s Senior Vice President, U.S. Communications and External Affairs, describing the campaign that the Brunswick Group developed for BP. The overall goal of the campaign was to “Advance and protect the role of gas—and BP—in the future of energy conversation.”

62 Energy Information Administration, Where Greenhouse Gases Come From (online at www.eia.gov/energyexplained/energy-and-the-environment/where-greenhouse-gases-come-from.php) (accessed Nov. 9, 2022).

63 Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Reducing Methane Emissions Across the Natural Gas Value Chain – Guiding Principles (Nov. 2017) (online at www.ccacoalition.org/en/resources/reducing-methane-emissions-acrossnatural-gas-value-chain-guiding-principles). 64 BPA_HCOR_000246

As Kate Aronoff pointed out in The New Republic this week, Biden's stand with bosses against workers placed him on the same side as the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council:{, both of which were among the 400 groups that called on Congress to stop the strike. amy w ===

api3 has links from api2bak but will not save

how related to IPAA?

see benzene evil coverup, legal suppression, derg

see methane 180 BS // NAM?

EDF tag: https://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/category/methane-2/ ...see fossil fuel ceo

see big 4 FF

see darren woods

disaster capitalism / shock doctrine

defectors: shell bailed from AFPM on paris and renewables, and threats to defect from API but no one has? review promised/ delivered?

omg

west va v epa

7 22 intercept

...Today’s Supreme Court decision marks perhaps the biggest payoff yet for Koch’s decades of plotting against environmental regulations — and the most devastating loss for everyone else. Three of the extremist judges who joined the decision — Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh — wound up on the Supreme Court in large part because of Koch’s activism and contributions.

Americans for Prosperity, an astroturf political group founded by Charles Koch and his brother David, conducted extraordinary campaigns to put all three judges on the highest bench. To support Kavanaugh’s nomination, the group reached out to more than 1.2 million Americans through mail, phone calls, and knocking on doors, according to a flyer released by the organization. The group also pushed hard for Barrett, whose father worked for Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, a powerful trade group for the oil and gas industry. And it campaigned for Gorsuch, whose mother presided — disastrously — over the EPA under President Ronald Reagan. Charles Koch is also closely connected to Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, a conservative organization Koch has supported directly and through his family foundation.

The case itself can also be tied directly to Koch. The challengers are 27 Republican attorneys general, who were supported by the Koch-funded Republican Attorneys General Association. At least four Koch-funded entities have filed amicus briefs in the case: the Cato Institute, which was co-founded by Charles Koch; the Competitive Enterprise Institute; the New Civil Liberties Alliance; and Americans for Prosperity. Another foundation that filed an amicus brief, the Landmark Legal Foundation, denied receiving Koch funding, though Jane Mayer reports in her book “Dark Money” that Koch helped subsidize it....

31 pp

https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2022-12-09.COR_Supplemental_Memo-Fossil_Fuel_Industry_Disinformation.pdf

concl [redactions hilarious]

The American Petroleum Institute also improperly withheld documents from the Committee, including materials prepared for its Executive Committee and Board of Directors and relating to API’s activities surrounding major federal climate policy proposals. For example, API redacted emails to representatives of other oil and gas trade associations, including the American Gas Association and Independent Petroleum Association of America with the subject line “reconciliation coordination,” referring to the budget reconciliation bill that culminated in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.114

API also redacted communications regarding pending Securities and Exchange Commission regulations that would require companies to disclose their climate impacts, and documents describing meetings with Administration officials, including a document outlining industry’s priorities for a March 22, 2021, meeting with President Biden’s then-National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy.115

• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been especially obstructive and evasive in its response to the Committee’s subpoena. The Chamber excluded almost all internal documents from its production, preventing the Committee from evaluating whether external positioning and internal rhetoric are aligned. Instead, the Chamber produced documents that it knew were tangential to the Committee’s investigation, including mass mailer publications, newsletters, mass letters to Congress, mass emails to congressional staff, and press releases. The Chamber also produced printouts from its website, comment letters to federal agencies and departments, widely distributed event invitations, and daily news clippings— while refusing to produce the internal documents that are required by the Committee’s subpoena. The Committee continues to seek full compliance with its subpoenas in this investigation. Despite obstruction from Big Oil over the last year, the Committee’s investigation has uncovered troubling evidence of a long-running greenwashing campaign by the fossil fuel industry—all while doubling down on long-term production of oil and gas and reaping record profits at the expense of American consumers. The evidence obtained by the Committee shows the vital importance of the Committee’s investigation to uncover the truth about Big Oil’s role in the climate crisis and the industry’s inaction and misinformation that continue to exacerbate the crisis.

june 2022

https://www.vox.com/23058987/sec-climate-finance-disclosure

as drought spreads and sea levels rise, the economic impacts of climate change will run in the trillions of dollars. The insurance firm Swiss Re projects climate disasters would cost the world as much as $23 trillion by 2050, bigger than the impact from the pandemic and the Great Recession of 2009 combined.

It’s reasonable business planning to account for all this foreseeable risk — just like planning for cyberattacks or business disruptions from a pandemic. Last year, for instance, the US had to spend $145 billion dealing with floods, fires, and other climate-related disasters.

Yet somehow, climate change has fallen through the cracks of US financial regulation. Publicly traded companies are required to disclose information about “material” risks that affect their company regardless of their cause, from sanctions to supply chain chaos. But there are no uniform standards for disclosing how much fossil fuel pollution they generate or the impact that climate change could have on their future growth. Instead, companies have been left free to inflate their environmental progress, all with little scrutiny from the public.

This kind of information is, in theory, essential to a functioning free market, so investors can make decisions based on complete information. But fossil fuel interests, conservative ideologues, and corporate trade groups are striving to keep shareholders in the dark on climate risks.

The Biden administration is trying to make companies more publicly accountable for the risk of the climate crisis. A linchpin of Biden’s plan is a draft rule the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed in March. Over 500 pages, the SEC rule proposes that publicly traded companies disclose how climate change affects their business outlook and identify a board member or board committee to focus on climate-related risks.

Once the rule is finalized, companies will have to disclose how their operations are affected by extreme weather events and the impact of climate change on the short- and medium-term business outlook. They’ll also have to report the emissions both from their company’s operations and from how their products are used. This is particularly bad news for fossil fuel companies with business models predicated on selling pollution. Until this rule, they haven’t had to fully account for the environmental impact from things like selling gas that’s burned by consumers’ cars.

This is a rule, in other words, that helps the free market act like the free market, giving investors exactly the information they need to make the decisions,” Emory University business law expert George Georgiev said.

As the draft rule’s comment period came to a close, it’s clear any regulation on climate change faces serious headwinds. The loudest protests have come from right-wing groups and corporate-aligned nonprofits that have flooded the public comments with previews of the argument they’ll take to courts.

Plenty of businesses in the financial sector stand to benefit from this rule, like the investing giant BlackRock, which has pledged to align its assets with climate goals. But some could be hurt. The companies that benefit from greenwashing their climate commitments are doing everything they can to protect the chaotic status quo.

Financial transparency on climate change is hardly a radical idea

The SEC has required and standardized public company disclosures since 1933. In recent decades, the SEC has issued nonbinding guidance on how publicly traded companies should consider Covid-19 disruptions, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and even a feared “Y2K” meltdown at the turn of the 21st century, so the companies would meet their fiduciary duty.

But the SEC has been painfully slow on climate change. Right now, businesses disclose the risks and costs of their business on the climate on a voluntary, patchy basis with no clear standardization.

A 2020 Government Accountability Office surveyed 32 midsize and large publicly traded companies and found little consistency. Airlines, for example, used years anywhere between 1990 and 2017 as the baseline for calculating their climate footprint. Water companies have used completely different measurements for reporting water extraction. Some companies would just report carbon emissions, while others would report total greenhouse gas emissions (including sources like methane).

The proposed SEC rule cites other evidence of companies not paying attention to this risk, like an internal survey of climate-related keywords in companies’ 10-Ks between June 2019 and December 2020. They found only 31 percent mentioned climate change at all.

This information is not just to benefit climate change efforts; it is also useful to investors. It makes clearer, for instance, that a retail company’s warehouses might be threatened by increased flooding, that an airline company might have to ground more flights because of rising heat waves, or that a bank’s backing of major fossil fuel expansion has the strong chance of backfiring in a world that transitions to renewables. Without any regulation and standardization, companies will just continue to try to outshine one another on their environmental and social commitments without hard data to back it. This mismatch will become an existential risk to financial instability if, for example, extreme weather pummels a business that did not prepare accordingly.

Environmental activists have pushed for more from companies by proposing shareholder resolutions at annual meetings that ask for more transparency, but have met with mixed success in shareholder votes that don’t bind the company to taking action.

In this regulatory vacuum, voluntary global affiliations have cropped up, including the Net Zero Assets Managers Initiative, representing some $43 trillion in assets, and Climate Action 100+, representing more than $60 trillion. Another of these groups is run out of the Financial Stability Board as a Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a voluntary system that has grown to more than 3,000 companies. The task force’s recommendations tell companies to consider the short-, medium-, and long-term climate impacts, emissions that result from investment decisions, and their operations’ pollution, and account for the changing climate’s consequences for the business. The hundreds of companies that voluntarily comply with these standards aren’t necessarily green or good for the environment, but it’s an extra gold star for their sustainability transparency.

Eight countries, including the UK, have passed laws that will mirror the TFCD’s recommendations, but the US would remain an outlier without the SEC rule. “Investors put their money where they think there’s a good opportunity and good information,” said Steven Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets. “If we don’t have good information, we run the risk of falling behind internationally.”

The SEC’s rule is basically the US playing catch-up, based on standards the mainstream corporate community aligned with TFCD have already backed.

Initially, companies will have to spend extra to comply with the rule — up to $530,000 a year for larger companies by the SEC’s estimate, but it will vary depending on how much companies are doing already on climate disclosure. Typically, the costs of rules shrink over time. Otherwise, the rule itself is quite modest. The SEC is “not saying you should or shouldn’t invest in climate products,” Rothstein said. “They’re just saying, tell investors what you’re doing and do it in a consistent way.”

Environmentalists and some Democratic lawmakers argue the SEC could be doing even more. The SEC does not change how companies disclose climate-related activities like PR campaigns and political influence, the kind of activities that tend to be outsourced to nonprofits that shield their activities from the public. In March, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called it a “failure of nerve that shies away from a perfectly legal, necessary response to the climate danger we face” because political efforts remain “the single most material disclosures a company could make to achieve climate safety.”

Right-wing groups claim financial transparency is an attack on free speech

Unsurprisingly, the SEC is facing immense pressure to withdraw this rule because of the same shadowy political spending that companies don’t have to disclose in the first place. Groups like the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Americans for Prosperity, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have flooded the SEC with comments that argue company free speech would be violated.

Trade groups and right-wing think tanks have argued that requiring companies to report these emissions is akin to violating their First Amendment rights of free speech, pointing to a court case that ruled a regulation requiring the disclosure of conflict-zone minerals would amount to “compelled speech” and violated the companies’ rights.

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry lobby, has argued the rule “could raise serious First Amendment issues under recent applying strict scrutiny to content-based laws compelling speech.”

The argument has found purchase with conservative lawmakers, like West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who picked up the argument in his 2021 letter to Treasury last year. In Congress, 19 Republican senators argued in their submitted comments that the rule is “not within the SEC’s mission to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.” Another 40 Republican representatives wrote that the rule will act to “undermine and shame public companies,” while Republican attorneys general describes the rule as a “total reordering of [the SEC’s] present disclosure regime.”

The attack on regulation under the guise of First Amendment rights has become more familiar in recent years. “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has been steadily giving corporations more and more leeway, more and more rights,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a corporate law expert who has published several books on corporate speech.

The court also opened the door to more of these lawsuits, striking down a California law that required nonprofits to disclose their donors, siding with the Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s argument against disclosing their donors and providing IRS 990 forms to the state. Other legal challenges to campaign finance laws and unions have used the First Amendment.

Legal experts supportive of the SEC rule consider the argument a long shot in courts. “I think that argument is really far-fetched,” Emory’s Georgiev said.

But it’s still worrisome. If it succeeds, whether in courts or as a scare tactic to get the SEC to backtrack, it sets a dangerous precedent for the financial system at large. “If this climate rule is violating the First Amendment, it’s been all nine decades [the SEC has been] violating the First Amendment,” Georgiev said. “They will definitely try it out in courts. At the end of the day, a lot of far-fetched arguments succeed in courts.”

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20892344-comments-to-sec-on-esg-rule#document/p33/a2075289

comments from acc chem, AEI, AFP, API, cato, cei heartland etc CTT, CoC, co2 coalition, conoco phillips, enbridge, inst for free speech, heritage, nam, NMA, noia, lifepoerwed TPPF, WEA western energy? US oil and gas

Comments to SEC on ESG rule

supports principles based framework p. 1

Any reporting framework adopted by the rr Commission should be conductive to flexible and diverse climate change disclosures that reflect the different factors driving a company's business. p. 2

railroad industry has already taken steps to voluntarily comply with... SASB and TCFD... Adopting an existing, widely used program would lessen transition time. p. 2

not impose strict liability. furnish separately instead of file p. 2

Supports "furnishing" approach p. 5

We believe a business-specific "materiality standard that acknowledges differences across and within industries... p. 5

ACC involved in development of SASB standards, ACC member companies are using for voluntary disclosure p. 5

private market standard-setters often develop climate change disclosures with an implicit bias based on their perception of an industry's reputation p. 5

The liability standard imposed on information filed with the SEC is an inappropriate standard for such forward-looking and aspirational disclosures p. 6

ESG reporting "futile" p. 8

If public companies are driven to use the same (or similar) sets of assumptions about central parameters, a very real danger would arise of more-or-less homogenous predictions inconsistent with historical, ongoing, and prospective climate phenomena." p. 9

...and there is no evidence in support of the ubiquitous assertions of a climate "crisis," whether ongoing or looming, and no evidence in support of the even more extreme "existential threat" argument. p. 10

Again, public companies conducting climate "risk" analysis will have powerful incentives to choose among assumptions on future emissions and atmospheric concentrations, climate sensitivity, and other crucial parameters so as to insulate themselves from political attack, adverse regulatory actions, and litigation p. 14

Those political pressures will lead public companies and government agencies not to consider the benefits of increasing atmospheric concentrations of GHG p. 14

...it is not easy to separate natural from anthropogenic effects on temperatures and other climate phenomena. p. 15

Accordingly, the data are unclear as to whether there is occurring an acceleration in sea level rise p. 16

The reality is that a "climate risk" disclosure requirement would be deeply speculative. p. 18

What about massive volcanic eruptions? Asteroid impacts? Powerful earthquakes? p. 19

Constitutional objection to ESG reporting p. 22

SEC Climate Disclosure Mandates Risk Compelling Speech at Odds with the First Amendment p. 23

...expressing views they may not hold or would prefer to express in different ways. p. 23

...could imply that the speaker had adopted a position on the topic of climate change... p. 24

Commissioner Hester Peirce identified some of the risk of compelled speech in this context during June 2019 remarks before the American Enterprise Institute, including public shaming and shunning based on nebulous, incomplete, arbitrary, inconsistent, and political information which would be incorporated as part of an SEC climate or ESG disclosure regime. p. 25

explain in a forthcoming article p. 25

...the evidence of ESG-certified investments -- whether by governments or third parties -- achieving financial or environmental objectives is likely overblown. p. 26

As Commissioner Peirce has articulated, the use of global, one-size-fits-all ESG and climate disclosure regimes may undermine the bottom-up, non-government innovations that respond to those investor and consumer interests p. 27

...represents a sweeping expansion of government power and mission creep for many parts of the federal government. p. 27

API seeks to serve as a resource and an active participant p. 29

API developing framework based on EEI/AGA template p. 30

disclosure requirements beyond materiality "could raise serious First Amendment issues" p. 33

Central Hudson Doctrine p. 34

"industry issuers may be best positioned to define the standard for require climate disclosures" p. 34

API encourages SEC to view industry resources as key starting points for evaluating need to develop new reporting requirements p. 37

constitutional limitations on SEC's ability to require companies p. 38

look forward to working with SEC "through the rulemaking process" p. 40

ESG reporting "important" and AXPC is committed to "progress" p. 42

AXPC metric framework and template p. 43

materiality is key p. 43

'neutrality'; any disclosures should not "discriminate against any economic sector or sectors" p. 44

urging adherence to procedural requirements/allowing additional input from industry p. 45

AXPC urges SEC not to include scope 3 emissions in reporting requirements p. 47

does not believe SEC should require auditing/believes companies should be able to rely on third party auditors p. 50

would urge Commission to not require certification of climate disclosures p. 51

"strong supports a 'comply or explain' framework" p. 51

unclear mandatory disclosure can provide a net benefit p. 53

the SEC is not tasked with environmental regulation p. 53

...also raises questions about the SEC's ability to evaluate prescriptive disclosure frameworks and fairly enforce compliance with them. p. 53

90% of the companies in the S&P 500 were publishing a sustainability report. p. 54

the SEC would be stepping in to pick "winners" and "losers" p. 55

Evolving understandings of climate change p. 56

Corporate environmental sustainability disclosures--and ESG disclosures more generally--have come to fruition as a result of exogenous demand for such information, and an industry has grown up around the provision of such information. p. 57

The SEC should not extend any climate change-related disclosures requirements to private companies. p. 59

"name and shame" -type of strategy p. 59

...the losses they may incur as climate policies devalue and strand their assets and courts compel them to pay compensation to climate change victims. p. 61

In practice, however, it is often hard to distinguish what component of current risks is due to climate change rather than just plain old climate. p. 62

Advocates for climate risk disclosure: p. 64

If the state of the world is improving, including in regard to cilmate-related risks, why now compel publicly-traded companies to quantify climate-related risks as though their financial lives depend on it? p. 72

Third, CO2 emissions have positive as well as negative externalities. p. 74

adaptation requires wealth, and mitigation targets that strand 42.1 percent fossil fuel industry assets by 2030 would destroy trillions of dollars of wealth. p. 77

The NetZero agenda is the political equivalent of war on the fossil fuel industry. p. 77

Death spiral p. 78

Disclosure advocates warn of a carbon bubble but the Paris treaty and NetZero agendas may be setting the stage for a green bubble. p. 85

Solyndra! p. 85

ESG exceeds powers of SEC p. 93

...mission creep for the agency... p. 93

Accounting firms, consultants, and law firms with compliance practices can be expected to welcome more disclosure requirements for self-interested professional reasons. p. 97

the Scientification of Non-Knowledge p. 100

...some climate and ESG-themed disclosure mandates could become compelled speech that conflicts with First Amendment protections. p. 100

At least some proposed climate disclosure provisions, by which companies must confess to having metaphorical blood on their hands with regard to future catastrophic effects of climate change, would face similar First Amendment concerns." p. 101

Should a U.S. firm end a contract with a textile factory in Bangladesh over the average age of its workers or will that simply cause those teenage employees and their families to fall even further into poverty when their factory closes? Isn't poverty alleviation itself a major ESG goal? p. 104

The agency should continue to defer to the materiality threshold to help continue to prevent securities from becoming politicized p. 107

companies are already required to disclose material ESG information under current law p. 108

advocating a flexible, principles-based approach with tailoring for different industries and companies p. 110

it is critical to avoid finding "fraud by hindsight" p. 110

Third-party standard setters may not be insulated enough from stakeholder and other policy agendas... important questions to answer about organizational governance, due process, and funding sources. p. 111

SEC should take a closer look at transparency and conflicts of interest [in third party ESG assessments] p. 112

SEC should allow a commensurate market-based approach to third-party assurance for climate-related reporting p. 113

Disclosure... should not be a tool for advancing political interests or achieving policy goals p. 113

Chevron has a "long history" of reporting on ESG p. 115

supports disclosure for "consistency and comparability of climate-related information" with existing frameworks and a phased approach p. 115

support for reporting times to line up with other agencies p. 116

Chevron working with API to develop 'voluntary template' p. 116

"Chevron's climate change reporting experience" p. 117

urging a "phased" approach p. 118

advocating for a principle-based approach rooted in 'materiality' p. 118

SEC should focus on "decision-useful information" p. 118

SEC should build on existing sustainability-related disclosure requirements p. 118

support for global sustainability standard; encouraging SEC to use TCFD framework/voluntary standards/private sector industry standards p. 119

Chevron offers assistance as the SEC "moves forward with Climate disclosure" p. 119

"There is no climate crisis" p. 120

"We have long recognized the need for action to address climate change" and "understand investor interest" in ESG p. 122

recommend SEC adopt existing reporting frameworks (TCDF, SASB) p. 122

standards-setting organizations and industry can successfully/should work together p. 123

phased approach / based in materiality / "harmonize" disclosure requirements with other sustainability reporting requirements p. 123

urging a "hybrid-approach" to disclosure: company specific while "minimizing categorical discrimination among industries" p. 123

data should be presented in way that is useful for investors p. 124

"materiality" for climate disclosures: "reasonable investor would consider it important in deciding how to vote" p. 124

should apply liability protections / ESG disclosures should be "furnished" not "filed" p. 125

Our members are leading the transition to the lower-carbon energy economy p. 127

brags about "recognizing the importance of climate change disclosure" p. 127

"we support the Commission's focus" p. 128

ESG requirement should be collab between registrants and investors, flexible, sector-specific p. 128

best to work with investors to disclose relevant information p. 129

"climate change data and disclosure are inherently uncertain" - companies should not be liable p. 130

"forward-looking societal climate impacts or other externalities" are not useful to investors/decision-making p. 131

should not be a one-size fits all approach p. 132

"caution against delegating the development of public-company disclosure requirements to NGOs or private companies" p. 134

"we recommend the Commission prioritize standards applicable to registrants subject to its rules" p. 139

advocating for own EEI-AGA ESG/Sustainability Reporting Template p. 140

do not believe additional certifications or reviews are necessary p. 140

need to be careful that disclosures do not lead to additional litigation p. 141

"existing requirement to disclose material risk factors" re climate is sufficient p. 142

"our perspective is drawn from our long and sustained history of voluntary disclosure" related to ESG p. 148

ESG must remain rooted in SEC's mission "to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation" p. 149

SEC must remember "purpose of reporting": investors and materiality at forefront p. 149

need to allow degree of flexibility/customization p. 149

"harmonized and uniform global framework for climate change disclosure... seems unrealistic" p. 149

advocating for adoption of existing frameworks p. 149

disclosures "should be subject to a safe harbor or limitation on liability" p. 150

"phased approach" needed p. 150

"no statutory authority" for ESG disclosure p. 151

"compelling ESG information from companies... is the type of humanitarian and social benefit regulation that has been struck down as unconstitutional under the First Amendment" p. 151

SEC climate regulation "cannot overcome even Central Hudson intermediate scrutiny" p. 152

ESG regulation will have negative consequences p. 154

Climate Science "Highly Uncertain" p. 160

calls for policing of fund management firms for ESG fraud p. 162

arguing ESG is essentially a tax on workers p. 177

"allow for flexible disclosure" but in support of "principle based framework" p. 184

Any rule is premature p. 201

supports "new regulatory framework" p. 213

supports "a systemic approach to addressing the climate challenge" p. 216

TPPF comment through "Life:Powered" p. 217

"Risks to Human Welfare from Climate Are Decreasing, Not Increasing" p. 218

Additional disclosure requirements will result in First Amendment violations p. 220

Example of conflict minerals disclosure. p. 220

WEA and USOGA Comment p. 222

"uncertainties" on "extent of anthropogenic contributions and the amount of warming " p. 223

WEA uses paper that critiques decades long campaign to promote misinformation on climate by oil and gas p. 226

Preference for SASB on governance issues p. 229

WEA questions SEC's sincerity p. 231

Original Document (PDF) »

Contributed by Jesse Coleman (Documented)

see Document

omg

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/climate/republican-treasurers-climate-change.html

no lnx

How Republicans Are ‘Weaponizing’ Public Office Against Climate Action

A Times investigation revealed a coordinated effort by state treasurers to use government muscle and public funds to punish companies trying to reduce greenhouse gases.

Riley Moore stands in an office wearing a dark suit jacket unbuttoned with a white collared shirt without a tie. On the walls hang portraits of presidents and other officials.

Riley Moore, the West Virginia treasurer, announced last week that several major banks would be barred from government contracts with his state.Credit...Kristian Thacker for The New York Times

By David Gelles

Gelles reviewed more than 10,000 pages of documents and emails while reporting for this article.

Aug. 5, 2022

Nearly two dozen Republican state treasurers around the country are working to thwart climate action on state and federal levels, fighting regulations that would make clear the economic risks posed by a warming world, lobbying against climate-minded nominees to key federal posts and using the tax dollars they control to punish companies that want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Over the past year, treasurers in nearly half the United States have been coordinating tactics and talking points, meeting in private and cheering each other in public as part of a well-funded campaign to protect the fossil fuel companies that bolster their local economies.

Last week, Riley Moore, the treasurer of West Virginia, announced that several major banks — including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo — would be barred from government contracts with his state because they are reducing their investments in coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.

Mr. Moore and the treasurers of Louisiana and Arkansas have pulled more than $700 million out of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager, over objections that the firm is too focused on environmental issues. At the same time, the treasurers of Utah and Idaho are pressuring the private sector to drop climate action and other causes they label as “woke.”

And treasurers from Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma joined a larger campaign to thwart the nominations of federal regulators who wanted to require that banks, funds and companies disclose the financial risks posed by a warming planet.

At the nexus of these efforts is the State Financial Officers Foundation, a little-known nonprofit organization based in Shawnee, Kan., that once focused on cybersecurity, borrowing costs and managing debt loads, among other routine issues.

Then President Biden took office, promising to speed the country’s transition away from oil, gas and coal, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet.

The foundation began pushing Republican state treasurers, who are mostly elected officials and who are responsible for managing their state’s finances, to use their power to promote oil and gas interests and to stymie Mr. Biden’s climate agenda, records show.

The New York Times reviewed thousands of pages of internal emails and documents obtained through public records requests by Documented, a watchdog group, that shed light on the treasurers’ efforts since January 2021.

At conferences, on weekly calls, and with a steady stream of emails, the foundation hosted representatives from the oil industry and funneled research and talking points from conservative groups to the state treasurers, who have channeled the private groups’ goals into public policy.

The Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute and the American Petroleum Institute are among the conservative groups with ties to the fossil fuel industry that have been working with the State Financial Officers Foundation and the treasurers to shape their national strategy.

Many Democratic state treasurers support efforts to combat climate change and want banks and investment firms to be clear about risks posed to returns for retirees and others. Democratic lawmakers in California and New Jersey are working on legislation that would require their state pension systems to divest from fossil fuels. But Democrats have not mounted anything like the national campaign being orchestrated by the State Financial Officers Foundation.

The Republican treasurers skirt the fact that global warming is an economic menace that is damaging industries like agriculture and causing extreme weather that devastates communities and costs taxpayers billions in recovery and rebuilding. Instead, they frame efforts to reduce emissions as a threat to employment and revenue, and have turned climate science into another front in the culture wars.

“This is a departure from their traditional roles,” said Robert Butkin, the former Oklahoma treasurer and a professor at the University of Tulsa. “There used to be a strong nonpartisan and bipartisan ethic among treasurers, but you’ve seen a lot of that erode over the past several years.”

‘Politically motivated’

In November, as major banks and corporations at a global summit in Glasgow were promising to take climate action, the Republican state treasurers were huddling at a State Financial Officers Foundation conference in Orlando, Fla., talking about ways to stop them.

At the meeting, the group’s chief executive, Derek Kreifels, made a presentation about a new law that had been signed by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican. It prohibited state agencies from investing in businesses that have cut ties with fossil fuel companies.

The Biden Administration’s Environmental Agenda

President Biden is pushing stronger regulations, but faces a narrow path to achieving his goals in the fight against global warming.

[Long-Sought Climate Action: After decades of failed attempts, Congress is on the cusp of passing the nation’s first major climate law. The bill avoided the political pitfalls of past legislative attempts by offering only incentives to cut climate pollution, not taxes.

Extreme Heat: President Biden said that he would expand existing federal programs to help Americans cope with the extreme heat wrought by climate change, stopping short of declaring a national emergency.

Supreme Court Ruling: By limiting the Environmental Protection agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions, the court made it much harder for the president to achieve his climate goals.]

Within weeks, Mr. Moore was working with legislators in West Virginia to write a similar bill, which became law in March. While Texas officials have been slow to enforce their law, Mr. Moore was quick to put it into action.

Last week, he notified five major financial institutions — Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley — that they are barred from doing business with West Virginia because they have intentionally wound down their dealings with coal companies.

“If a bank, for instance, decides to say they have a no-lending policy as relates to thermal coal, well, then we’ll find a bank that doesn’t have that policy,” Mr. Moore said in an interview.

Mr. Moore went on to offer a classic denial of the overwhelming scientific consensus that the continued burning of oil, gas and coal will lead to planetary catastrophe.

“The climate has been changing in the world since Earth was created,” Mr. Moore said. “Whether these greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to the warming of the globe, I’m not sure I necessarily agree with that.”

The banks targeted by Mr. Moore say they are not boycotting the fossil fuel industry. All of them still do substantial business with oil and gas companies, but in the long run, they say, moving away from fossil fuels makes economic sense. West Virginia, for example, is the second-largest coal-producing state in the country, but production has declined significantly during the past two decades.

“He’s trying to counter pressure that’s coming from progressives on the left,” said Loren Allen, general counsel of the West Virginia Bankers Association, which lobbied against the new law celebrated by Mr. Moore. “Our banks are tied up in the center of a battle that no one can really win.”

Mr. Kreifels declined an interview but said in a statement that concerns over issues like climate change were “putting politics over profits, and likely reducing shareholder value.”

Kentucky, Tennessee and Oklahoma have passed similar laws this year. “Kentucky joins our growing coalition of states that have taken concrete steps to push back against the woke capitalists who are trying to destroy our energy industries,” Mr. Moore said in a news release praising the moves by the states.

Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen other states, including New York, Oregon and Virginia, are trying to advance similar legislation.

The laws could cost taxpayers. A recent study found that Texas cities, where some financial institutions have voluntarily left the market because of laws targeting companies that embrace environmental, social and governance priorities, collectively known as E.S.G., are likely to incur up to $532 million in higher interest costs in less than a year because of the legislation.

“These officials are using the public finance market to make political statements,” said Daniel Garrett, a finance professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the authors of the study. “They can use these laws as a carrot or stick as they desire, but the costs can be potentially quite large.”

The treasurers are increasingly going after individual financial institutions.

In addition to the banks targeted by Mr. Moore, the treasurers of Utah and Idaho are criticizing plans by S&P Global, the ratings agency, to integrate climate risk into its credit ratings of states. And BlackRock, which manages some $8.5 trillion, has been the target of withering attacks for its stance on environmental issues.

Larry Fink, the BlackRock chief executive, has been outspoken in his desire to steer away from fossil fuels and toward what he considers a more sustainable, greener economy.

“Every government, company, and shareholder must confront climate change,” Mr. Fink wrote in a public letter in 2020 in which he described the integration of climate risk into investment decisions as “a fundamental reshaping of finance.”

In response, Mr. Moore’s office stopped using BlackRock to help manage West Virginia’s operating funds, withdrawing about $20 million.

“Larry Fink has stated it very clearly that he thinks capitalism has the power to shape society,” Mr. Moore said. “But my state doesn’t want the same shape of society that Larry Fink does.”

Other treasurers followed suit. In March, the Arkansas treasurer, Dennis Milligan, pulled $125 million from BlackRock. And in April, the treasurer of Louisiana, John Schroder, emailed Mr. Moore and Marlo Oaks, the Utah treasurer, and boasted about withdrawing more than $600 million from BlackRock accounts. Mr. Schroder said he had also blocked Citibank, Bank of America and JPMorgan from almost $1 billion in bond financing.

“That’s excellent, John!!!” Mr. Moore replied, according to emails reviewed by The Times. “Great work!!!”

BlackRock declined to comment.

Mr. Milligan, the Arkansas treasurer, emailed a statement in which he said, “I feel a strong sense of responsibility to do my part in not allowing the liberal ‘woke’ agenda to disadvantage the very people I was elected to serve.” Mr. Schroder and Mr. Oaks declined requests for interviews.

Withdrawals by a few states represent a tiny slice of BlackRock’s business. But inside banks and investment firms, there is mounting concern that the state bans could spread to pension funds, which account for nearly $4 trillion in investments across the country.

“We already have a lot of divisions in this country,” said Noah Friend, the former general counsel for the Kentucky treasurer. “I don’t like the idea that if you’re a Republican you have to bank with this company and if you’re a Democrat you have to bank with that company. Everything becomes this politicized decision about who you do business with.”

‘A coordinated attack’

Julie Ellsworth, the Idaho treasurer, asked the State Financial Officers Foundation to distribute a memo that misrepresented the position of banks on environmental, social and governance issues.]

Behind the treasurers and the State Financial Officers Foundation is a complex web of conservative groups linked to the fossil fuel industry, as well as some of the biggest names on Wall Street.

In March, Julie Ellsworth, the Idaho treasurer, asked Mr. Kreifels to distribute a memo about the fossil fuel boycott bills to other state treasurers, according to the emails.

The memo had been prepared using research from the Heartland Institute, a think tank with a history of denying climate science, and it misrepresented how banks and other financial institutions were implementing their E.S.G. strategies.

“If you’re a small-business owner with a gasoline powered car, you’re eventually going to be phased out of banks’ portfolios, unless you switch to electric vehicles, of course,” the memo said in a section about how banks would use E.S.G. to force businesses to change. “Similarly, if you want to buy a house in the future that runs on natural gas, you, too, won’t be able to get a mortgage until you put solar panels on the roof.”

No banks have proposed such measures. Ms. Ellsworth declined to comment.

The Heartland Institute has also worked to amplify the treasurers’ message and connect them with influential conservative media personalities including Glenn Beck, records show.

Other groups supporting the treasurers’ efforts include the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has long opposed action to combat climate change and that has received substantial funding from the oil billionaires Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch.

The State Financial Officers Foundation this year hired CRC Advisors, a conservative strategy firm that was founded by Leonard Leo, who has led a multiyear effort to stack federal courts with judges who oppose climate action. In recent months, CRC Advisors has helped coordinate media responses for treasurers, including Mr. Oaks of Utah, according to emails reviewed by The Times.

And the State Financial Officers Foundation shares many ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a conservative group with longstanding ties to the Koch brothers.

The American Legislative Exchange Council chief executive, Lisa Nelson, is on the State Financial Officers Foundation board, and ALEC’s chief economist, Jonathan Williams, is a senior policy adviser to the foundation.

Last July, the State Financial Officers Foundation hosted a conference in conjunction with ALEC, and the two groups have even shared blocks of discounted hotel rooms for their event. Mr. Moore and Mr. Kreifels were among the treasurers attending ALEC’s annual meeting in Atlanta last week.

“The State Financial Officers Foundation is a key node in a network of political groups waging a coordinated attack on climate policy,” said Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher at Documented, the watchdog organization that obtained the emails. The group is working “to weaponize state treasurers’ offices against federal appointees, regulations, and corporate policies that address climate change,” he said.

As a nonprofit organization, the State Financial Officers Foundation is not legally required to disclose its funders. A partial list of the organization’s financial supporters on its website shows that it gets funding from not only conservative groups but also from some of the biggest companies in the world, many of which say they are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They include JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Visa, Mastercard, Fidelity, Federated Hermes and SAP — all of which have publicly embraced E.S.G. principles.

Most of the sponsors declined to comment, and many of their contributions were relatively small. In a statement, Beth Richek, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman, acknowledged the bank’s support for the group. “While we may not agree with every position they take, our mutual engagement is important for our company, employees, and customers,” she said.

Blocking federal appointees

Saule Omarova, President Biden’s first nominee to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, withdrew after treasurers portrayed her as a “radical extremist.”Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times]

Mr. Biden came to office with a vision: the entire federal government would be focused on reducing the country’s emissions, with new rules implemented across federal agencies staffed by political appointees who embraced the effort.

Among the obstacles Mr. Biden didn’t anticipate were the state treasurers.

An early sign of turbulence came in May 2021, when 15 treasurers sent a letter to John Kerry, Mr. Biden’s climate envoy, raising concerns about what they said was the administration’s hostility toward the oil and gas industry.

“Reckless attacks on the fossil fuel industry ultimately cut off paychecks for workers and take food off the table for hard-working middle-class families,” the letter read.

By the end of the year, the treasurers were publicly lobbying against a bevy of proposed rules and nominees.

Among their first targets was Saule Omarova, Mr. Biden’s nominee for comptroller of the currency. Ms. Omarova was heavily criticized by Republican senators, some moderate Democrats and the banking industry for her desire to limit speculative trading by banks and to open the Federal Reserve to retail banking.

But she drew the ire of the treasurers for saying that if fossil fuel companies went bankrupt it would help fight climate change. The State Financial Officers Foundation issued a letter signed by more than 20 financial officers calling her a “radical extremist.”

When Ms. Omarova withdrew her nomination in December, Mr. Kreifels sent an email to the treasurers congratulating them. “It’s an honor to work along side you all,” he said in an email titled “VICTORY!”

Two months later, the treasurers focused on another nominee: Sarah Bloom Raskin, whom Mr. Biden had nominated to be the Federal Reserve’s head of bank oversight. Ms. Raskin, a former Federal Reserve and Treasury official, has argued that financial regulators should police climate risks more diligently.

Mr. Kreifels urged the treasurers to speak out against Ms. Raskin, describing her as an “anti-energy climate change alarmist.”

In emails to state treasurers, the foundation provided draft tweets and other messaging strategies. “We must make as much noise about this as possible,” Mr. Kreifels wrote. “Make this THE ‘kitchen table’ issue in your state for the week.”

Like Ms. Omarova, Ms. Raskin withdrew her nomination. “Sarah was subject to baseless attacks from industry and conservative interest groups,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.

The treasurers have also set their sights on new federal rules and regulations intended to strengthen the government’s ability to act on climate change.

Late last year, the State Financial Officers Foundation worked with the Heritage Foundation to respond to proposals from the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a government panel assigned to minimize risk in the financial sector, on ways to reduce the threats posed by climate change, records show.

And soon after that, Mr. Oaks, the Utah treasurer, drafted a letter opposing a potential Department of Labor rule that would allow retirement plans to consider risks from global warming in their investment strategy. Mr. Kreifels distributed the draft to the foundation’s members, and more than a dozen treasurers signed the final letter. The Department of Labor has not decided whether to implement the rule.

This year, the treasurers targeted the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. After the agency proposed a rule to require banks to consider climate-related financial risk, executives from the Heritage Foundation sent Mr. Kreifels and Mr. Oaks a memo outlining their opposition. Within weeks, dozens of state treasurers and attorneys general from Republican-led states submitted comments objecting to the proposed rule.

“This special concern for and attention to climate-related risks is irrational,” one comment read.

And in May, Mr. Kreifels organized a call with the treasurers to discuss regulations proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission that would require companies to publicly disclose climate risks to investors. The featured guest was a representative from the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying arm of the fossil fuel industry.

The next month, the State Financial Officers Foundation sent a 20-page letter signed by more than a dozen treasurers, calling the S.E.C.’s proposed rule, which has not yet been enacted, “irrational climate exceptionalism, elevating climate issues to a place of prominence in disclosures that they do not deserve.”

https://theintercept.com/2022/05/25/fossil-fuels-disaster-capitalism-russia-ukraine/

BACK IN LATE 2021, as Russian President Vladimir Putin began mobilizing troops at the Ukraine border, the fossil fuel industry got its foot soldiers ready too. With the threat of Russian aggression and subsequent sanctions looming, gas prices were on the rise, and the fossil fuel industry wanted the public to know that there was only one culprit: climate policy.

“There are a lot of factors at play as to why energy prices are surging,” Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, or API, told CNBC at the time. “But certainly one of the key factors is that the Biden administration has made an effort to reduce production in the United States. One of their first acts, for example, was cutting off the Keystone XL pipeline. One of their second acts was cutting up leasing and permitting on federal lands, and then they cut off access to ANWR,” referring to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

He gave roughly the same interview every week for months. On March 7, two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, he repeated it again, telling a CBS reporter, “You know, first they cut off the Keystone XL pipeline. Then they put a moratorium on leasing and permitting on federal lands and on offshore waters. And then they cut off supply from the Alaska natural national wildlife refuge.”

[no lnx]

that’s some consistent messaging! For the record, about 25 percent of fossil fuel drilling happens on public lands; the rest is entirely controlled by private companies. The fossil fuel industry is sitting on at least a decade’s worth of unused leases, so it’s unlikely that a lack of new leases has impacted current production or supply.

The Keystone XL pipeline was intended to transport tar sands oil from Canada to export terminals in the Gulf of Mexico, where two-thirds of it was earmarked for non-U.S. customers. It was nowhere near functional when it was canceled: About 8 percent of the pipeline had been built, and TC Energy, the company behind the project, still needed to find $6.9 billion of the $8 billion construction cost to finish it.

As for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the holy grail for U.S. oil companies, it has been off-limits to oil drilling since 1977. For a brief moment in 2017, the Trump administration reversed that, but no major oil companies — no API members — even bid on leases. These are the only pieces of climate policy Sommers continuously referred to because they’re the only ones the Biden administration has actually managed to pass, but none of them have had any impact on the current supply of domestic oil and gas in the United States or the price at the pump.

But the facts don’t matter if you’re the first one to frame a story and you repeat it often enough. A new report out this week shows that consistent messaging, coordinated messengers, and a massive advertising blitz combined to deliver major policy wins to the fossil fuel industry as early as two weeks from the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“On February 24, within hours of Putin’s invasion, I was just watching these serious patterns emerge,” said Christina Arena, a public relations and climate disinformation expert. Arena worked for the PR firm Edelman when it handled the API account, so she knows a campaign when she sees one. “API and other trade associations were echoing similar talking points immediately, anti-Biden talking points, anti-renewable energy talking points.” That kind of consistency and media training takes months, not days, to prep, she said.

That prompted Arena to reach out to InfluenceMap, a think tank that tracks the influence of corporate lobbying on climate policy. InfluenceMap teamed up with Media Matters for America and Triplecheck to look into what various fossil fuel interests were saying about Russia-Ukraine and how those messages were being amplified. The organizations’ resulting report pinpoints the top messages and messengers, and how they map to big policy wins.

Some of the findings are to be expected. API went big, as did Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The usual suspects amplified the industry’s messaging: Breitbart News, Fox News, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn. All told, API placed 651 Facebook ads from the end of January to April 1, reaching more than 19 million people. On February 24, the day of the invasion, API and its network got busy. “There’s a huge peak where we get to 100 fossil fuel misinformation posts that yielded over 5 million likes, comments, and shares,” Arena noted.

[“I think you could call it a disinformation-driven heist of public policy.”

But there are some less expected findings too. After battling gas bans for two years, the gas side of the industry seems to have fully embraced the fact that the climate movement doesn’t see it as its friend anymore. Gas entities that joined the party include the American Gas Association (a trade group for gas utilities), Hess Corp., and Sempra Infrastructure.

The types of messages were also a surprise. After a decade or so of greenwashing, the fossil fuel industry is going full culture war. The report finds three key messages across hundreds of social media posts and media appearances: American fossil fuel production ensures freedom and national security; high gas prices are caused by climate policy, and the solution is more drilling; and climate change is something only liberal “woke” elites care about.

There’s also a push to convince people that some kind of Green New Deal-adjacent policy is in place and that is what’s driving up gas prices. “I think you could call it a disinformation-driven heist of public policy,” Arena said.

And there’s the timeline, and the dividends this campaign has paid to the industry. By mid-March, the Energy Department was starting to grant permits to increase the volume at some liquid natural gas export terminals. “So that’s two weeks maybe from the start of the crisis,” said Faye Holder, the lead author of the InfluenceMap report. “We’ve seen a heavy, heavy use of social media, both in advertising and organic content. And then they’re feeding off of media too. A lot of the things that are retweeted by API, for instance, are Mike Sommers on Fox News.”

By March 25, Biden was announcing a U.S.-European Union liquefied natural gas deal that the Trump administration had tried and failed to get done: 15 billion cubic meters in 2022, with a standing order for 50 billion cubic meters a year until 2030. “That’s just a little over four weeks. That’s a very short interval,” Arena said. “And I feel that interval should alarm lawmakers. It should alarm people in the climate community. That’s disaster capitalism.”

some lnx

...but there are some less expected findings too. After battling gas bans for two years, the gas side of the industry seems to have fully embraced the fact that the climate movement doesn’t see it as its friend anymore. Gas entities that joined the party include the American Gas Association (a trade group for gas utilities), Hess Corp., and Sempra Infrastructure.

ref

https://influencemap.org/report/US-Oil-and-Gas-and-the-War-in-Ukraine-19009

How the US oil/gas sector is using the war in Ukraine to undermine Paris-aligned climate policy

See coverage in Agence France-Presse, Forbes Middle East, DeSmog, and The Intercept

This research details an active effort from the US oil and gas industry use the war in Ukraine to advocate for long-standing policy asks relating to the continued expansion of oil and gas. The research looks at the month following the invasion of Ukraine on the 24th February 2022. This has happened across social media, traditional media, public presentations, investor calls, and direct interactions with America’s policymakers. This lobbying behavior mirrors that seen from the oil and gas industry following the COVID-19 crisis.

The industry appears to be using a number of key narratives to push its pro-fossil fuel agenda, many of which appear to include misleading claims or misinformation. These narratives include blaming the Biden Administration's climate policies for the increase in gas prices, calling for the development of more US oil and gas to lower gas prices and increase energy security, promoting LNG as a clean solution to the US's 'allies'.

These narratives are being used to push for a long-term role for oil and fossil gas in the energy mix and appear to be targeted towards specific policy demands. These include advocating for policies which encourage new and/or increased oil and gas production, and rolling back previous climate policy decisions that limited the production of oil and gas or required climate considerations in new projects.

While calling for policies to increase the production of oil and gas, the oil and gas industry continues to actively oppose a number of state level policies designed to reduce the need for fossil fuels. These include opposing fossil gas bans in new buildings and electric vehicle mandates.

report

executive Summary :

This research details an active effort from the US oil and gas industry to use the war in Ukraine to advocate for long-standing policy asks relating to the continued expansion of oil and gas. This has happened across social media, traditional media, public presentations, investor calls, and direct interactions with America’s policymakers. This research focuses on the month following the invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022. 

The main actors identified in this briefing are the American Petroleum Institute, American Gas Association, National Association of Manufacturers, US Chamber of Commerce, and Consumer Energy Alliance. The lobbying evidence collected covers letters to policymakers, large social media advertising campaigns, and public statements by CEOs. The latter of which also includes speeches and media comments from company CEOs and presidents such as Mike Wirth from Chevron and Ryan Lance from ConocoPhillips. 

The research identifies several key narratives used by the industry to push a pro-fossil fuel agenda during this period. Some of these narratives, particularly those about the causes of the current crises appear to include misleading claims or elements of misinformation. These narratives include: o That the Biden Administration's climate policies have caused a decrease in the supply of oil and gas, leading to high gas prices. A similar narrative used is that the Biden Administration's policies have undermined US energy independence, making America reliant on foreign oil. Both narratives have been found to be misleading by AFP fact-checker.

o That the way to fix gas prices and increase energy security/independence is to increase the supply of US oil and gas, which can be achieved through favorable government policies.

o That LNG is a clean, low-carbon source of energy that can help transition the energy mix and achieve emissions reduction goals. This claim has previously been regulated against by advertising authorities in the UK for containing misleading claims. Moreover, increasing the production of oil and gas is at odds with the advice of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its latest report "Mitigation of Climate Change".

 InfluenceMap has seen these narratives used by CEOs of major oil and gas companies in the US, particularly during CERAWeek, a major energy conference. For example, Ryan Lance, CEO...

conocoPhillips, stated that “poor energy policy, poor regulatory policy […] rapid push to renewable

energy and a maligning of the of fossil fuel industry" has led to the increase in gas prices.

These narratives have also been heavily pushed on social media. For example, between February

4th and March 31st, 2022, the American Petroleum Institute created and ran an ad campaign

through its astroturf group, Energy Citizens, which consisted of 233 individual ads that were seen

roughly 19.6 million times, equivalent to around 10% of all US users of Facebook (Q1 2022). All of

these ads promoted 'American-made energy' or 'energy independence'.

These narratives are being used to push for a long-term role for oil and fossil gas in the energy mix.

The companies and industry associations identified in the research appear to have targeted the

following policy issues:

o Introducing measures that encourage new and/or increased oil and gas production.

o Rolling back previous policy decisions that limit the production of oil and gas or introduce

considerations for climate change in approval processes for oil and gas production.

o Opposing current state-level policies that would reduce the need for oil and gas and

alleviate pressures stemming from demand for oil and gas.

Recent wins for the US oil and gas industry resulting from this lobbying include the rollback of the

FERC's proposal to consider climate change when permitting new gas projects on March 24th

2022, and the approval of two new LNG export terminals on March 16th 2022.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15052022/philippines-fossil-fuels-climate-liability

icn 5 22 nick k

when Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines in 2013, it made a direct hit on the hometown of Yeb Saño’s family. Saño,the country’s chief climate negotiator at the time, had to attend the United Nations climate change conference in Poland only days after the storm passed. As he addressed the other delegates, his brother was helping collect the dead.

“My brother remembered exactly how many bodies he picked up with his own hands,” Saño said. “Seventy-three dead bodies exactly.”

Haiyan ultimately killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines and damaged more than 1 million homes, uprooting lives with devastation from which the country still hasn’t recovered. While the storm may have been an act of nature, Saño and others were convinced that humans, ultimately, were responsible.

In 2015, working with Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Saño sought to hold those people accountable, petitioning the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights to declare the world’s largest fossil fuel companies “accountable for either impairing, infringing, abusing or violating human rights” because of their contribution to climate change.

earlier this month, the commission issued its conclusions. Saño felt vindicated. In a damning and lucidly-written report, the commission found that the world’s largest fossil fuel companies had “engaged in willful obfuscation and obstruction to prevent meaningful climate action.” The companies continue to deny climate science and try to slow a transition away from fossil fuels, the report said, driven “not by ignorance, but by greed.”

As the first national human rights body to weigh in on fossil fuel companies’ role in driving climate change, the commission determined that corporations have obligations under human rights law and can be held liable if they neglect them. While the commission has no power to compel companies or governments to act on its findings, legal experts said its report carries broad implications for other cases.

“This is a milestone for the narrative that climate impacts result in the infringement of human rights,” said Saño, now the executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia. “So this report means a lot to Filipinos who confront the adverse effects of the climate crisis. This means a lot for the pursuit of climate justice.”

Some of the companies named in the petition, which included Chevron, ExxonMobil and other major producers, sought to have it dismissed, the report said, arguing that the commission had no jurisdiction beyond its borders and that the topic reached outside its traditional realm of political and civil rights. But the commission rejected these appeals, determining that it had a mandate “to test boundaries and create new paths; to be bold and creative, instead of timid and docile.”

Some experts said the report’s impacts extend beyond the Philippines, increasing the legal risks that fossil fuel companies are facing from a raft of lawsuits around the world. Despite the commission’s lack of enforcement powers, legal experts said its findings provide new strength and evidence for cases that have already been filed and will help people file new challenges in courts and human rights commissions elsewhere.

“I think corporations, their boards, their leaders should really start taking this potential liability seriously,” said John Knox, an expert in international and human rights law at Wake Forest Law who testified to the Philippines commission. “This is the harbinger of much more to come.”

The commission’s multi-year inquiry and its final report are part of a growing effort globally to reframe climate change as a threat to human rights. Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council created a new special rapporteur on human rights in the context of climate change. Aside from better recognizing the impacts of warming on people’s health and well-being—now evident around the world in the form of more extreme weather—advocates of this framing say it provides a solid base for holding governments and corporations accountable if they fail to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Saño said he has been in touch with colleagues in other parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe about the report’s findings.

“Many of them were just waiting for this to be completed,” he said, “and now that we have seen the culmination of the Philippines case it provides a lot of energy into those other possibilities.”

A Roadmap to Document Harm

The Philippines is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world, an archipelago south of Taiwan that is hit by an average of 20 cyclones each year, according to the commission’s report. The country has also contributed only a tiny portion of the greenhouse gases that humans have pumped into the atmosphere over the last century-and-a-half. The pairing of the Philippines’ vulnerability with its relative lack of culpability makes it a powerful venue for an inquiry into climate change and human rights.

In 12 public hearings and many hours of testimony, the commission gathered an exhaustive catalog of evidence about the science of climate change and its impacts, and fossil fuel companies’ efforts to sow doubt about that science as they lobbied against government attempts in the United States and other countries to reduce dependence on coal, oil and gas.

The petition by Greenpeace drew on the research of Richard Heede, who leads the Climate Accountability Institute and has published studies linking specific levels of greenhouse gas emissions to specific companies, the so-called “carbon majors.” According to Heede’s research, Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company of Saudi Arabia, is responsible for more emissions than any other company, with Chevron and Exxon close behind.

Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law, which filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners, said the new report was perhaps the most comprehensive compendium of all the research that has been published on fossil fuel companies’ role in driving emissions.

But what stood out, Muffett said, is that the report tied those greenhouse gas emissions to immediate threats to specific human rights of Filipinos, including their rights to life, health, food security and sanitation.

“Through every one of those rights, the commission pulls out witness testimony that says this was the lived experience of this,” Muffett said. “It is very much a roadmap to show how you document human rights impacts of climate change not only on entire nations, but on individuals and the communities who are being harmed, and that is, I think, extremely important.”

One chieftain from the southern Philippines testified that her people have been unable to practice traditional rituals based on seasonal rhythms because erratic weather has disrupted the once-predictable patterns. A rice farmer reported decreased harvests as a result of extreme heat.

One storm survivor told of losing three children, a son-in-law and four grandchildren to Typhoon Sendong in 2011. Veronica Cabe, one of the petitioners, spoke about the destabilizing effects of having her home destroyed by a storm.

“We felt displaced, we didn’t have our own space,” she told the commission. “We were forced to live with friends who were willing to share their homes with us. We were separated from each other.”

The commission held several hearings in New York and London, and traveled to the Netherlands, too, in a mostly-failed attempt to have some of the 47 fossil fuel companies named in the petition testify or meet with the commissioners.

The report focuses in particular on arguments made by the American Petroleum Institute, the American coal industry and others, beginning in the 1990s, against efforts to limit emissions from fossil fuels, despite those organizations’ knowledge of the dangers of failing to do so.

In the report, the commission cites international human rights laws and standards to say that corporations, in addition to states, have obligations to protect human rights. It points to the continued financing of politicians who oppose climate action as evidence that fossil fuel companies are still working to deflect needed action. And it adds that financial institutions that fund fossil fuel production share in the responsibility and, potentially, liability for continuing to drive emissions higher.

Scott Lauermann, a petroleum institute spokesman, said, “At a time of rising energy costs and geopolitical volatility around the world, it’s more apparent than ever that we must both reduce emissions and ensure access to affordable, reliable energy for U.S. consumers, and that’s exactly what our industry has been focused on for decades” He added, “Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”

Creighton Welch, a spokesman for Chevron, said, “Chevron intends to be a leader in efficient and lower-carbon production of traditional energy—in high demand today and for years to come—while growing the lower-carbon businesses that will be a bigger part of the future.”

Todd Spitler, an Exxon spokesman, said the company was “developing comprehensive roadmaps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our operated assets around the world and in support of society’s net-zero ambitions,” including investments in low-carbon technologies such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and biofuels. He added, “Our commitment to emissions reduction isn’t new; we have supported the Paris Agreement from its inception and made consistent progress on short- and medium-term emissions-reduction plans.”

A spokesperson for Saudi Aramco declined to comment.

The report was the first to be issued by a national human rights commission, and experts said it was only the second official finding to tie fossil fuel companies’ actions and responsibilities directly to the human rights impacts of climate change. Last year, a Dutch court ordered Shell to reduce its emissions in a ruling that drew in part on human rights laws.

Muffett and others said the report will add to a growing list of rulings and evidence laying the groundwork for holding specific companies liable for their role in fueling warming.

“What the commission is saying is there are adequate bases here for seeking to hold these companies liable,” Muffett said. “And I think that’s really significant because this report provides a pretty clear roadmap to human rights bodies and courts around the world, to then take up cases to do precisely that.”

In the report, the commission acknowledged that it had no enforcement powers, and instead was providing recommendations to companies and governments for how they could meet their obligations to protect human rights with respect to climate change. For companies, chief among those was halting the exploration of new oil and gas fields and contributing to a climate fund for mitigation and adaptation. The report said states must enact policies to make sure companies take these steps, and to penalize those that don’t.

Saño said he hopes the report would have immediate impacts in the Philippines, where the son of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was just elected president on Monday. He said successive governments have failed to address injustices in the country, including the concentration of power in a small elite, that exacerbate the impacts of climate change. The new government has an obligation to better protect its citizens from the storms that hit its coastlines every year, Saño said, and “this really paves the way for a lot of change, we hope.”

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/02/biden-climate-change-actions-anger-big-oil/

President Joe Biden signed executive actions last week prioritizing solutions to the “existential threat” of climate change, drawing the ire of many key players in the politically powerful oil and gas industry.

Biden’s actions pressed pause on the leasing of federal lands and waters for oil drilling, set a goal of keeping 30 percent of federal lands for conservation purposes and announced the electrification of the federal government’s fleet of vehicles. The move comes a week after Biden revoked the permits for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline just hours after his inauguration, following through on a campaign-trail promise.

Leading up to the 2020 election, the oil and gas industry contributed around $1.6 million more to former President Donald Trump than to Biden. Trump painted himself as an ally to the industry on the stump and throughout his presidency — though industry insiders told Politico in 2020 that the Trump administration was “a mixed bag” and “more like ‘meh’” than the windfall they had hoped for in 2016.

The oil industry spent millions in 2020 to try to keep a GOP majority in the Senate. Valero, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, among the few corporations that give to super PACs, gave at least $1 million each this election cycle to the Senate Leadership Fund, a conservative super PAC that spent $271 million to campaign against Democrats vying for the Senate.

Pausing land and water leases ‘to the extent possible’

Biden’s decision to halt future leases of federal land, pending a comprehensive review of the climate impact, caused an uproar among oil and gas companies and trade associations. Just hours after Biden formalized the order, the Western Energy Alliance announced it would sue the Biden administration, alleging the move violates existing law.

Most drilling occurs on private land, rather than federal property. In 2017, approximately 24 percent of oil and 13 percent of natural gas extracted in the United States came from federal lands. According to analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey, around a quarter of U.S. emissions come from the combustion and extraction of resources from federal lands.

Oil and gas companies rushed to stockpile drilling permits during Trump’s lameduck period — doubling the number of permit requests over the same period in 2019, according to an AP report. Under Biden’s order, oil and gas companies can continue to obtain new permits to drill on land that has already been leased.

Experts say the executive action likely won’t immediately impact rates of oil extraction in the U.S. As of 2019, there were 38,294 leases active across the country, concentrated mostly in the American West. Once a lease has been issued, companies have 10 years to begin production on the land before the lease terminates.

The oil and gas industry’s leading trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, came out against the order. API President Mike Sommers criticized Biden’s suspension of federal agencies’ authority to issue leases of federal land to drilling companies in a Jan. 21 statement.

“Restricting development on federal lands and waters is nothing more than an ‘import more oil’ policy. Energy demand will continue to rise—especially as the economy recovers—and we can choose to produce that energy here in the United States or rely on foreign countries hostile to American interests,” Sommers said.

In 2020, API’s PAC spent $88,200 to support Republican candidates, giving $5,000 to the Great America PAC, a Trump-aligned Carey committee. API also dropped $5.3 million to employ 40 lobbyists, reporting lobbying 66 individual bills. The institute’s lobbying spending fell during Trump’s administration after trending upward throughout former President Barack Obama’s two terms in office.

Another leading oil and gas industry association, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, has also come out in opposition to the action.

“We think it was really misguided,” Senior Vice President for Government Relations Dan Naatz told an Arkansas TV news team. “It impacts jobs and economies through the inner-Mountain West, all the way through the country.”

In 2020, the organization’s PAC spent $215,300 in campaign contributions, giving $10,000 each to Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and former Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.).

Biden framed the executive action as a jobs package, remarking, “today is climate day in the White House which means today is jobs day at the White House,” just before he signed the executive actions. Labor leaders say they are waiting to hear how exactly Biden will replace jobs lost in energy sectors.

“It’s too glib and easy to say someone working in the mines can get a solar job. That is too simplistic,” Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, told the Washington Examiner. “There is a mismatch between where energy jobs are getting lost and where they are created. We have to close that gap, but we also have to be real and help economies diversify their economies in ways based on their own assets.”

Oil corporations emphasize that gap. The Global Energy Institute, a subsidiary of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, came out against some of Biden’s climate actions, claiming it would lead to widespread unemployment.

“Without the prospect of future leases, investment and planning will begin to dry up immediately, thwarting job creation and the economic growth at the worst possible time,” the Institute’s President Marty Durbin said in a statement.

The Chamber of Commerce perennially favors Republicans and dropped $5.7 million in outside spending in 2020.

Keystone canceled, frustrating some oil companies

The Chamber of Commerce also condemned Biden’s action to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline, a project widely opposed by environmental advocates, indigenous communities and scientists.

“This is a politically motivated decision that is not grounded in science. It will harm consumers and put thousands of Americans in the building trades out of work,” Durbin said.

The Keystone XL pipeline was proposed in 2008, vetoed by Obama in 2015 and promptly re-initiated by Trump in 2016 along with another controversial project, the Dakota Access Pipeline. Environmental and indigenous rights advocates are now calling on Biden to cancel the latter pipeline, which abuts the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

That pipeline is owned by Energy Transfer Partners, an oil and gas conglomerate that gave more in campaign contributions than any other company in the industry. Ninety-nine percent of its donations went to Republican candidates and committees. In 2020, the company’s co-founder and board chair, Kelcy Warren, donated a whopping $10 million to America First Action, a Trump-affiliated super PAC.

Biden’s climate actions are also drawing criticism from Republican lawmakers from oil-rich states who have benefited from industry contributions. Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) announced Jan. 22 that they would introduce legislation to overturn Biden’s executive action and re-issue permits to the Keystone XL Pipeline, which was slated to pass through Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska before connecting to an existing pipeline in Kansas.

“We came so far during the last administration – from prioritizing American energy development to ending the far-left’s war on fossil fuels,” said Inhofe in a statement announcing the legislation.

Throughout his career, Inhofe has received in excess of $2.2 million in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies. Daines and Barrasso have each received $1.2 million from the industry.

The group’s bill is a symbolic gesture to the industry and its supporters without any real hope of passing the Senate, where Democrats wield a majority, albeit narrowly. The oil and gas industry spent heavily to prevent the upper chamber from swinging blue, giving around $600,000 each to Republican Senate candidates in Georgia Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who both lost narrowly to Democratic challengers in January runoffs. The American Petroleum Institute donated $5 million to the Senate Leadership Fund in late November, after every Senate campaign had concluded save the two ultra-expensive Georgia races.

Faced with pressure from Washington, other corporations look to adapt

Some energy companies are taking a different tact, announcing plans to adapt their business model to thrive in a Biden administration that prioritizes conservation and climate action.

Industry giant Exxon Mobil announced Feb. 1, just days after Biden’s executive order, that it would initiate massive investments in carbon capture technology aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The company, whose employees favored Biden over Trump in 2020 campaign contributions, will spend $3 billion over the next five years to build up a new subsidiary business: ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions.

General Motors has committed to only manufacturing zero-emissions vehicles by the year 2035, inline with Biden’s commitment to electrifying the government’s fleet. Ford’s new CEO has also pledged to restructure production plans, prioritizing the addition of electric vehicles to its portfolio, which currently features only one fully-electric model.

The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an oil-refining trade association that spent $3.2 to lobby the government in 2019, responded to that provision by reaching out to an unlikely ally: biofuel manufacturers. AFPM reportedly hopes to create an alliance with the competitor industry to lobby Biden to revise his fleet electrification plans in order to include cars powered by low-emission gasoline made from a mix of gasoline and ethanol.

JANUARY 26, 2021

THE AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE EXPOSED: THEIR HYPOCRISY ON BOLD CLIMATE ACTION

https://climatepower.us/resources/api-exposed-hypocrisy-on-climate-action/

last week, President Biden and his Climate Cabinet got to work, taking swift climate action to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, undo the last four years of rollbacks, and lay the groundwork to build back better with clean energy. In response, the American Petroleum Institute (API), the oil and gas industry’s largest trade association, exposed their hypocrisy and provided us with a glimpse of their strategy to attack climate action.

At the same time they were “praising” President Biden’s decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement, API spread lies about the Keystone XL Pipeline and the impacts of drilling on our public lands. In addition, they started to run an attack ad from their “Energy Citizens” front group claiming that schools benefit from the very same royalty payments they tried to cut.

Here’s a glimpse of API’s hypocrisy:

Track Record of Lies and Misinformation

Misplaced priorities: API frequently touts the oil and gas industry’s efforts to lower emissions, even crediting “the industry’s leadership in reducing emissions to record low levels,” while rolling back limits on greenhouse gas emissions was at the top of their priorities list for the Trump administration.

Misleading the public: API has faced consumer fraud lawsuits from Minnesota, Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Hoboken, NJ alleging they misled the public about the dangers of climate change. Responding to the suit, API’s lawyer said “The record of the past two decades demonstrates that the industry has achieved its goal of providing affordable, reliable American energy to U.S. consumers while substantially reducing emissions and our environmental footprint.” Recent research warns that emissions might rise by 30% by 2025.

Track Record of Misleading Ad Campaigns

A “Climate Progress” ad campaign: API is running an ad campaign about a cleaner future while promising to fight any significant policies to address the climate crisis. API even recently lost a major oil member because it’s too out of step in its refusal to address climate change.

Direct attacks on climate bills: We’ve seen this before. Just days before Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, API CEO Jack Gerard said about climate change: “We intend to be part of the solution and look forward to a continuing dialogue on meeting this global challenge.” Then they ran a series of ads attacking climate change legislation, spent millions lobbying against it, and organized rallies in 20 states to oppose it.

A “citizen” front-group for oil and gas: API’s Energy Citizens campaign is running an ad about oil and gas contributing to school funding, even though they lobbied to lower the rates that oil and gas producers pay towards local school budgets.

“Real people” played by actors: API’s Energy Citizens campaign tries to frame their arguments in terms of real people, like “Ben” who was featured in an ad about oil and gas workers. Ben was actually played by actor Rigo Nova, who also played “Carlos” the bartender in the right-wing dystopian fantasy film “Obamaland Part 1: Rise of the Trumpublikans.”

Record of Supporting Climate Deniers and Election Objectors

Follow the money: API claims to “support the ambitions” of the Paris Climate Agreement but gave more than $50,000 to House members who voted against sticking to the goals of the Paris agreement. They also fund the American Council on Capital Formation, which funded a widely panned study attacking the Paris Agreement.

Backing right-wing extremists: API President Mike Sommers called the Jan. 6th attacks on the Capitol “heartbreaking” and “absolutely sickening,” yet Sommers personally contributed $5,600 to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, whom Rep. Mo Brooks called “part of the team” trying to overturn the results of the election, and API contributed $133,500 to members of the Sedition Caucus. Sommers said “the parties responsible [for the insurrection] should be held accountable,” yet refuses to acknowledge his organization’s role in enabling the lawmakers who incited it.

Spreading misinformation: API has U.S. Senators spreading its debunked talking point that “as a result of greater use of clean-burning natural gas,” the U.S. is “a world leader in reducing carbon emissions and other air pollutants.” In reality, the U.S. has cut a much lower percentage of its total emissions than other countries, largely because of API’s decades of deceiving the public on climate science and lobbying against climate action.

Funding science denial: API claims to support policies that “continue to advance understanding of global climate change.” In reality, the organization funds groups and campaigns that peddle climate misinformation, discredit established climate science, and attack climate scientists.

ref food & ww

http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/who-supports-fracking

11.21.14

By Alison Grass

The science is in: climate change is a threat, and fracking worsens climate change. Fracking also brings many other well-documented problems, including water contamination, air pollution and adverse health effects. Clean, safe energy solutions are available, such as wind and solar power, energy efficiency technologies and conservation policies. To harness these solutions, we must remake the U.S. energy system -- but the oil and gas industry stands in the way.

The oil and gas industry has captured U.S. energy policy. To see that U.S. energy policy continues to serve the industry’s bottom line, it has erected a huge money machine to push a pro-fracking agenda at all levels of government. Whether it’s lobbying the halls of Congress or spreading misinformation in the media, the following groups are helping the oil and gas industry manipulate public opinion so it can continue drilling and fracking for fossil fuels. Here is our list of some of the main players helping to push fracking on the American public.

Trade Associations

America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA)

ANGA was formed in 2009 by a group of 27 independent natural gas companies to lobby for an industry-friendly climate bill.

ANGA “… works with industry, government and customer stakeholders to promote increased demand for and continued availability of our nation’s abundant natural gas resource … ”

ANGA lobbies for natural gas interests and spends millions of dollars on advertising and public relations aimed at convincing people to carry out its agenda.

ANGA spent $300,000 on lobbying in the early stages of the failed climate bill in 2009, to push for natural gas incentives.

In 2012, ANGA gave $50,000 to a group called Longmont Taxpayers for Common Sense, the largest donation to help keep a local fracking ban off of the ballot in Longmont, Colorado.

In one of its most egregious public relations stunts, which can be seen in its 2012 IRS 990 form, ANGA gave $1 million to help fund “Truthland,” a short film devised by the oil and gas industry to respond to the 2010 documentary “Gasland.”

American Gas Association (AGA)

AGA is a natural gas utility trade association that advocates for the use of natural gas and “represents companies delivering natural gas to consumers …”

AGA’s president and CEO, Dave McCurdy, is a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma. Among McCurdy’s priorities at AGA is to expand the use of natural gas for transportation, so as to serve the AGA membership’s interests in increasing demand for natural gas.

AGA is credited with positioning natural gas as a “bridge fuel” decades ago. This positioning has allowed natural gas to be viewed as part of the solution to climate change, but climate pollution stemming from natural gas dependence is a major threat.

American Petroleum Institute (API)

API is “the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and gas industry.”

API uses its financial power to back several dark money groups, including the Coalition for American Jobs, a 501(c)(6) group, which was set up by API lobbyists and is also supported by the chemical industry to air political ads for supportive candidates.

Since 2008, API has been led by its president, oil lobbyist Jack Gerard. Under Gerard’s leadership, API has invested heavily in public relations campaigns, like its Vote4Energy advertisements that inundated televisions during the 2012 presidential election.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, in 2012 API spent $85.5 million to four PR and advertising firms including $51.9 million to just one firm—Edelman, which calls itself “the world’s largest public relations firm.” The API is Edelman’s biggest client.

A bulk of API’s advertising and lobbying is done under names of its front groups: Energy Nation, Energy Citizens, EnergyTomorrow and America’s Energy Forum.

API’s front groups aggressively employ astroturf campaigns to give the appearance of grassroots support by organizing rallies and spreading misinformation to promote its agenda.

Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA)

IPAA is a national trade association that represents companies focused on exploration and production of oil and natural gas.

IPAA is responsible for creating Energy In Depth (EID), an industry-biased media outlet designed to respond to hydraulic fracturing criticism.

In 2011, DeSmogBlog revealed an IPAA leaked memo from 2009 that stated: “For months, IPAA’s government relations and communications teams have been working around-the-clock on a new industry-wide campaign — known as “Energy In Depth (energyindepth.org) — to combat new environmental regulations, especially with regard to hydraulic fracturing.”

Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC)

The MSC is a trade association working to promote drilling and fracking for shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.

The MSC comprises a large number of companies and law firms with stakes in expanded drilling and fracking for natural gas in the region, and across the country.

One of the MSC’s associate members, Aqua America, the second largest U.S. investor-owned water company, sells water to shale drillers.

The MSC’s Executive Board is run by industry employees from Range Resources, Williams, XTO Energy, CONSOL Energy, EOG Resources and numerous other companies profiting from fracking.

The group spends big money on public relations initiatives, has funded industry-biased fracking studies and has given money to colleges.

Many of Pennsylvania’s elected officials, regulators, lobbying groups and law firms have direct ties to the natural gas industry and the MSC.

For example, in 2010, the MSC brought on former Department of Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge for a year as a strategic adviser under a $900,000 contract, shared by his two consulting firms.

Astroturf Campaigns and Front Groups

American Clean Skies Foundation (ACSF)

While ACSF benignly describes itself as “an independent nonprofit working for cleaner energy in the U.S. transportation and power sectors,” it is, at best, an astroturf group that works to advance the natural gas industry.

ACSF was co-founded in 2007 by Aubrey McClendon, the former Chesapeake Energy CEO who was stripped of his chairmanship in 2012 after it was revealed that major financial backers of Chesapeake issued personal loans to McClendon in order for him to take personal stakes in the company’s wells.

Although McClendon stepped down from the ACSF board in 2013, its leadership still has ties to oil and gas industry interests.

One way that ACSF exerts its influence is through its financial backing of academic studies — funding so-called “frackademia” — such as the high-profile 2011 MIT study, The Future of Natural Gas, led by Ernest Moniz, now U.S. Secretary of Energy.

In 2011, before the report was released, Moniz was appointed to a profitable position on the Board of Directors of ICF International, a consulting firm with strong ties to the oil and gas industry.

Moniz also served on the NGP Energy Technology Partners advisory board for several years (although it is unclear whether or not he was compensated), in addition to his many other professional ties to the energy sector.

America's Energy Forum

America’s Energy Forum, launched in 2008 by the American Petroleum Institute (API), is a lobbying group.

In a presentation by API, the target audience of America’s Energy Forum is described as: “Politically influential third parties — 'grasstops' — including ‘political family’ members of local, state, federal lawmakers and federal candidates.”

API says that the mission of America’s Energy Forum is to: “Orchestrate new public policy outcomes for the industry by surrounding lawmakers with the most politically persuasive grass-top constituents supporting energy issues.”

For an example of how the group operates, in early 2014 America’s Energy Forum managed to write, and have a North Carolina mayor sign, a letter of support for oil exploration off the state’s coast.

Big Green Radicals

On March 6, 2014, Big Green Radicals, an industry front group, launched an attack on Food & Water Watch, and two other activist groups, with a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal, a 90-second commercial online and a website calling us a “big green radical.”

Big Green Radicals is led by PR flack/lobbyist Rick Berman, a man nicknamed “ Dr. Evil.” He has been the force behind many industry front groups pushing the interests of tobacco companies, payday lenders and casinos, and is often hired by companies to attack consumer and public interest groups.

Berman runs an advertising firm, Berman and Company, which shares office space with many of his industry-driven nonprofits, devised to appear like grassroots advocacy groups or independent research institutions.

Big Green Radicals is a project of Berman’s Environmental Policy Alliance.

Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD)

The Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) greenwashes the public with the delusion that widespread drilling and fracking can be done safely and sustainably, as long as the industry follows the CSSD’s drafted voluntary guidelines and performance standards.

These “standards” are the basis for the CSSD’s certification scheme, which it shamelessly likens to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program for recognizing green building design. For $30,000, applicants that meet certain standards are rubberstamped and the company can flaunt that it has met certain “sustainability” criteria.

Launched in March 2013, the CSSD was formed by a group of 11 companies, foundations and nonprofits: Chevron, CONSOL Energy, EQT, Shell, PennFuture, Group Against Smog and Pollution, Pennsylvania Environmental Council, Clean Air Task Force, Environmental Defense Fund, The Heinz Endowments and William Penn Foundation.

In reality, the CSSD is a portal for the oil and gas industry to exert its influence and help “scrub the image” of drilling and fracking.

Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA)

CEA poses itself as a grassroots organization, claiming that it works as “the voice of the energy consumer” and that it “provide[s] consumers with sound, unbiased information on U.S. and global energy issues.”

However, HBW Resources — an oil and gas lobbying firm — formed CEA in the late 2000s, and an IRS 990 form shows that CEA is run out of HBW Resources’ Houston office; many of the listed CEA staff are also employed at HBW Resources.

CEA has been a staunch advocate of the Keystone XL Pipeline, of drilling offshore from Florida to Maine and of fracking.

In 2011, CEA funded a public relations campaign that helped defeat a fracking ban ordinance in Peters Township, Pennsylvania.

More than once, CEA president David Holt, also a managing partner at HBW Resources, has written articles attacking Food & Water Watch, alleging without support that we are misrepresenting the risks and harms from fracking. Science makes clear the significant risks and harms.

However, CEA is misleading the public by claiming that it is a grassroots group. Its members consist of industry trade associations and oil and gas companies, while it receives funding from oil and gas industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute.

Energy Citizens

Energy Citizens is one of the American Petroleum Institute’s (API’s) front groups and has a presence in every congressional district in the United States.

Energy Citizen’s mission is to “identify, recruit, educate, engage, and mobilize citizens to voice support, participate in the energy-policy debate, and affect change at all levels of government” in order to fulfill oil and gas industry interests.

API describes its Energy Citizen membership base as mostly males with “nationalistic tendencies,” who consider themselves “eternal pragmatists,” “very religious” and “right of center,” and who “Love Sports — in particular Motorsports.”

According to a 2012 presentation by API’s Director of External Mobilization, the target audience for Energy Citizens is “Voters without a direct connection to the oil and natural gas industry.”

A leaked memo, however, exposed that in 2009, Energy Citizens planned astroturf rallies against climate change legislation that year, rallies that were fully organized from the top down and paid for by API, other industry lobbyists and API member companies, so that employees of those companies would participate.

The memo noted: “API will provide the up-front resources to ensure logistical issues do not become a problem. This includes contracting with a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns, corporations and interest groups. It also includes coordination with the other interests who share our views on the issues, providing a field coordinator in each state, conducting a comprehensive communications and advocacy activation plan for each state, and serving as central manager for all events.”

Energy Citizens propagates its agenda by using the web to “educate, activate, and organize,” while also attending Vote4Energy rallies, holding roundtables and participating in hearings.

Energy In Depth (EID)

EID acts as a PR arm for the oil and gas industry.

EID uses pseudo-grassroots tactics to build opposition against fracking activists, and it aggressively attacks any group, person or media outlet that displays concerns about or objections to fracking, in order to discredit them.

Among its tactics, in 2011 EID bribed citizens into testifying at public hearings in Pennsylvania on the industry’s behalf by offering free Pittsburgh Pirates tickets, paid airfare or bus transportation, and meals, in an effort to fill the space with pro-industry members of the public.

In response to “Gasland,” IPAA and EID spearheaded the pro-fracking short documentary “Truthland.”

EID’s “Contact Us” page on its website used to describe itself as, “… a project of America’s small, independent oil and natural gas producers…” Conversely, major fracking companies have heavily funded EID.

As an IPAA memo noted: “The ‘Energy In Depth’ project would not be possible without the early financial commitments of: El Paso Corporation, XTO Energy, Occidental Petroleum, BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, API, IPAA, Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.”

EID’s influence is extensive. For example, former EID spokesperson John Krohn is now employed with the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Energy Nation

Energy Nation, one of the American Petroleum Institute’s front groups, is a fleet of fracking advocates made up of current and former oil and gas industry employees, vendorsand their families.

Although backed by major oil and gas interests, Energy Nation attempts to rally itself like a grassroots organization. As illustrated in this presentation, the group strongly fosters employee mobilization to get current and former employees to be active “brand ambassadors.”

Energy Tomorrow

Energy Tomorrow is central to the American Petroleum Institute’s misinformation projects.

A key method of disseminating its propaganda is through TV advertisements, in which Energy Tomorrow spokesperson Brooke Alexander — a former soap opera actress — hypes the “benefits” of natural gas jobs.

Environmental Policy Alliance

Environmental Policy Alliance — “EPA”! — is a project of the Center for Organizational Research & Education, formerly known as the Center for Consumer Freedom, and has the same registered address as Rick Berman’s PR firm Berman and Company.

The Environmental Policy Alliance says it is “ … devoted to uncovering the funding and hidden agendas behind environmental activist groups and exploring the intersection between activists and government agencies.” In reality, the group is operating on its own financial interests, not the public interest:

In July 2014, the Environmental Policy Alliance launched a snarky and misleading advertisement in Colorado to counter fracking activists who have been campaigning to get anti-fracking ballot measures on the November ballot.

The ad spot mocks, insults and ridicules fracking activists, claiming that activists’ opposition to fracking is rooted in asinine assumptions, ignorant of science — even though science makes clear the significant risks and harms.

In June 2014, Anastasia Swearingen, who works for Rick Berman and the Environmental Policy Alliance, published two pro-fracking newspaper op-eds attacking the Bureau of Land Management for not yet opening up federal lands to fracking and drilling.

Swearingen’s op-eds are based on findings from a University of Wyoming study authored by Timothy Considine, a notorious figure in the world of frackademia, who has led industry-skewed studies funded by the Marcellus Shale Coalition and American Petroleum Institute.

In March 2014, five days after Swearingen published an op-ed attacking LEED certification in USA Today, the paper added an editorial update stating that it found out that she was “… employed by public relations firm Berman and Co., not the Environmental Policy Alliance.”

The editorial update went on to say: “The Environmental Policy Alliance, a tax-exempt group, has no employees and is housed at the same address as Berman, which controls the recently created group, according to Berman spokeswoman Sarah Longwell.”

United Shale Advocates (USA)

On March 20, 2014, the Marcellus Shale Coalition launched a new initiative in Pennsylvania, United Shale Advocates, “focused on ensuring that [they] advance common sense, predictable policies that encourage investment and job growth across the Commonwealth.”

This group, with its noticeably patriotic abbreviation (USA) is billed by the MSC as “a movement to tie together those interested in Pennsylvania energy and it’s a platform for them to engage further.”

As previously mentioned, the MSC is a consortium of major oil and gas industry players and their special brand of “grassroots” organizing, which should really be called “gasroots” organizing.

On May 6, 2014, “USA” hosted a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to oppose any efforts to impose taxes on the oil and gas industry in the state, and in support of fracking jobs and further development of the Marcellus Shale in Harrisburg.

Vote4Energy

Launched on January 1, 2012, Vote4Energy is another American Petroleum Institute astroturf campaign, which staged fake citizen support with commercials that highlight “real Americans” who are “energy voters.”

Activists revealed, after responding to the Vote4Energy casting call sent out on behalf of API, that the campaign initiative was an election-related advertising package with CNN, tied to the network’s political coverage for maximum political influence.

The casting call, sent on December 1, 2011, stated:

“We are writing to you because we need all ages and races to express their views in a Commercial Spot on American Made Energy!”

The call listed five qualifications that they were seeking, including:

“You are willing to go on camera and state your beliefs” and;

“You are comfortable portraying YOURSELF! They want REAL PEOPLE not Actors!”

Yet several people were kicked out if they didn’t agree to read API’s script verbatim.

Astroturf Propaganda

"Truthland"

“Truthland” is a short film conceived by the oil and gas industry as a rebuttal to “Gasland.” Its name, however, is an oxymoron, as the film is rather misleading.

The film, released in 2012, initially had its web domain registered to Chesapeake Energy Corporation.

It was eventually changed so that it was registered to MFL Holdings, ATTN TRUTHLANDMOVIE.COM, care of Network Solutions, but LittleSis (a project of Public Accountability Initiative) was able to save a cached screen shot of its domain when it was registered to Chesapeake.

According to the movie’s website, it is a project of Energy In Depth and IPAA, and according to an EID document acquired by LittleSis, Fred Davis, a Republican media strategist, produced “Truthland.”

Biased appearances were also made by: Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission member and fracking advocate, Terry Engelder; former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary, John Hanger; and former Pennsylvania DEP Deputy Secretary for Mineral Resources Management, J. Scott Roberts.

“FrackNation”

“FrackNation,” a pro-fracking documentary, was released in 2013 in response to “Gasland 2” — with its public debut at the same time as Matt Damon’s “Promised Land.”

The people behind “FrackNation” claim that it is an independent, grassroots-funded film, free from financial backing from the industry. But that doesn’t mean it is without its biases.

Once described as “stars of the Republican Party,” the producers/directors of “FrackNation” are climate change-denying couple Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, who have significant ties to powerful right-wing entities.

McAleer and McElhinney’s first two films received money from Donors Trust/Donors Capital, a nonprofit that siphons money into the climate change denial agenda and has financial ties to the Koch Brothers.

In a 2012 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, McAleer referred to environmentalism as “outsiders coming in and treating people like children.”

McAleer and McElhinney are reportedly “proud” that film critics compared one of their early films, “Mine Your Own Business,” to “pornography” and “Nazi propaganda.”

“FrackNation,” endorsed by countless oil and gas groups, also spotlights several industry persons, a former Big Tobacco champion, and climate change deniers, dubbed as “independent experts.”

DeSmogBlog has described how “FrackNation” takes a page from the Big Tobacco playbook and tries to turn clear scientific concerns into a matter of opinion, or into a “he-said, she-said” debate.

2/10

thinkprog

the extremist Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is being fueled by Big Oil. CPAC’s “Radio Row” — featuring “top conservative talk show hosts” — is officially sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the “only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry.” ThinkProgress is at the convention and took a picture of the prominent API sign:

Although API concedes that oil and gas pollution “may be helping to warm our planet by enhancing the natural greenhouse effect of the atmosphere,” the participants at CPAC believe global warming is a hoax. On the other hand, one would expect that the attendees — who decry groups with “allies like Iran” — would not want to take money from oil companies doing business in countries with ties to terrorism.

https://www.worldoil.com/news/2022/3/1/api-letter-calls-on-biden-administration-to-support-american-energy-leadership/

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API letter calls on Biden administration to support American energy leadership

American Petroleum Institute (API) 3/1/2022

Ahead of Tuesday’s State of the Union Address, American Petroleum Institute (API) President and CEO Mike Sommers sent a letter to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other administration officials outlining steps key regulatory agencies should take to ensure long-term American energy leadership and security at a time of increased geopolitical volatility.

“Recent developments illustrate the importance of the government working collaboratively with industry to ensure U.S. energy and economic security, as well as that of our allies in Europe and around the world,” API President and CEO Mike Sommers said. “Now more than ever, the administration should speak clearly and without equivocation that the United States will be a reliable producer and supplier of oil and natural gas to our allies around the world both now and in the future.”

The United States is now the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas and exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). In fact, for a period last month, US LNG exports to Europe exceeded Russian pipeline deliveries. At the same time, in recent weeks, decisions across the administration, including at the Department of Energy (DOE), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Department of the Interior (DOI), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other agencies, have introduced significant uncertainty that will negatively impact American energy investments.

“We commend the administration’s focus on addressing climate change and share the goal of reducing emissions across the economy, but we cannot let that objective detract from the clear and present need for continued responsible investment in oil and natural gas development,” Sommers continued.

In the letter, Sommers outlined a list of concrete policy solutions that the administration should immediately implement to ensure long-term American energy leadership and security.

The administration should clearly commit to the continued export of crude oil, natural gas, and refined petroleum products.

The DOE, along with FERC, should swiftly approve all LNG applications and establish clear and consistent timelines to approve future applications.

The DOI should issue a final notice of lease sale (NOS) under the current five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program by March 2, 2022. This will provide sufficient time to hold the lease sale prior to the expiration of the current program on June 30, 2022.

The DOI should complete the new five-year program with regularly scheduled Gulf of Mexico lease sales to minimize the unprecedented gap in offshore lease sales.

The DOI should schedule, and complete, quarterly onshore leasing sales as required under the Minerals Leasing Act, with sufficient acreage and equitable terms.

The administration should work with FERC, US Army Corps of Engineers, and other relevant agencies to ensure NEPA, CWA Sec. 401, the FERC policy statement, and other permitting processes for oil and natural gas infrastructure are designed and implemented in a manner that ensures consistency, transparency, and timeliness in their application.

The administration should work through the Commerce Department and our US allies to encourage investment in the full range of energy projects around the world and especially in Eastern Europe.

API also submitted a letter to Secretary Deb Haaland seeking clarification on DOI’s response to Louisiana v. Biden regarding leasing and permitting delays and urging the department to prioritize and move forward with its statutory requirements to issue quarterly lease sales and issue a five-year plan for offshore development.

RELATED NEWS ///

Biden scraps offshore oil auctions in Alaska and Gulf of Mexico (3/1)

Energy Workforce & Technology Council names Oklahoma Senator 'Champion of American Energy' (3/1)

https://www.worldoil.com/news/2022/5/11/energy-workforce-technology-council-names-oklahoma-senator-champion-of-american-energy/

U.S. oil output slips as higher costs hit drillers (3/1)

Energy Workforce & Technology Council names Texas Congressman 'Champion of American Energy’ (3/1)

kevin brady

...“It is an honor to name Congressman Brady with our Champion of American Energy award,” said Leslie Beyer, CEO, Energy Workforce and Technology Council. “Congressman Brady has been a long-time stalwart of free markets, low taxation, energy independence and the American worker. He was a leader in the House to end the oil export ban, and his work in Congress has led to growth in the energy services industry and helped boost domestic energy production. We will definitely miss him when he retires at the end of this Congress.”

Congressman Brady is the Republican leader of the House Ways and Means committee, one of the most influential committees in Congress with control over taxes, international trade, health care, Medicare, Social Security and welfare. He served as Chairman of the committee for six years prior to becoming the Republican leader. As Chairman, Brady successfully negotiated an end to the 40-year ban on selling U.S. crude oil overseas, leading to American energy independence.

“It’s a tremendous honor to receive this award from my friends at the Energy Workforce & Technology Council. EWTC has been a vital partner in the fight for American energy dominance, which has kept prices low for everyday Americans, provided countless economic benefits, and ultimately strengthened our nation’s security on the world stage. I look forward to our continued partnership as we advocate for a cleaner, more sustainable and more affordable energy future that puts Americans first,” said Congressman Kevin Brady (TX-08).

Congressman Brady has also served as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation and as a member of the Joint Economic Committee of the House and Senate. He has chaired both the Health Care and Trade Subcommittees of Ways and Means.

Prior to his election to Congress in 1997, Congressman Brady worked as a Chamber of Commerce executive for 18 years and served six years in the Texas House of Representatives, where he was named Top 10 Legislator for Families & Children and one of Five Outstanding Young Texans.

Steel market losing momentum as U.S. faces severe OCTG supply shortage (3/1)

Senate, House Democrats show why Gulf of Mexico oil & gas is a bipartisan endeavor (3/1)

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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/us-oil-lobby-endorses-carbon-pricing-to-counter-command-climate-policies

uS oil lobby endorses carbon pricing to counter 'command and control' climate policies

by Josh Siegel, Energy and Environment Reporter | | March 25, 2021

American Petroleum Institute endorsed carbon pricing on Thursday, putting the weight of the largest U.S. oil and gas lobbying group behind what many economists consider to be the most efficient policy to combat climate change.

API’s support for the policy after years of resistance shows how pricing carbon, either through a tax or cap-and-trade program, has become the most palatable option for business groups despite its political unpopularity.

MITT ROMNEY LEANS IN ON CARBON TAX TO SPUR CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY BREAKTHROUGHS] INNOVATION BS]

The oil and gas industry is looking to demonstrate commitment to fighting climate change while fending off mandates and regulations that have become the preferred approaches of the Biden administration and most Democrats.

“The administration is talking about command and control approaches,” API CEO Mike Sommers told the Washington Examiner. “We want to enter into this debate on one of biggest issues of the day to pursue a more market-based approach.”

API’s new position is a clear shift from its previous stance and follows similar positioning by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which recently endorsed a “market-based approach” to accelerate emissions reductions across the economy, a term that generally means a carbon tax or cap-and-trade policy. Economists have long contended that a carbon tax is the simplest and most efficient way to address greenhouse gas emissions, since it would reorient the market to support clean energy without mandating it.

A carbon tax would apply a per-ton fee for large emitters such as power plants and refineries that would encourage energy producers to switch to cleaner alternatives if doing so would cost less than paying the tax. A carbon price, at least initially, could benefit natural gas by pricing coal out of the market.

“There is a recognition [PASSIVE] that a price signal through a market-based mechanism is the best way to incentivize investments in technology to continue to lower emissions and to address climate change,” Sommers said.

API has acknowledged in recent years that climate change is a problem that needs to be addressed. It has backed policies such as funding federal research and tax breaks for carbon capture technologies that can enable fossil fuel operators to continue to operate as long as they prevent their emissions from reaching the atmosphere.

But Sommers said that API and its members are facing pressure from shareholders and investors, and its own workers, to do more, and he made clear the group now supports a comprehensive federal policy to address climate change across the economy, not just a series of one-offs.

“When I came into API two years ago, we did not have a climate policy,” said Sommers, who was the chief of staff to former GOP House Speaker John Boehner. “This change was really driven by the membership.”

Along with its support for carbon pricing, API released a broader "climate action framework" Thursday.

The group said it will continue to advocate for funding to support clean energy technologies, including carbon capture and hydrogen, which is increasingly being viewed as a critical technology to curb emissions in the power and industrial sectors. Natural gas groups see an opportunity to use their pipeline infrastructure to transport hydrogen and generate electricity with it.

API also reiterated its shift announced in January to support the direct federal regulation of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from new and existing oil and gas operations.

And it vowed to expand its guidance [EXPAMD FROM WHAT? WHAT EXPERTISE?] to member oil and gas companies on how to disclose their risks from climate change. The Biden administration’s Securities and Exchange Commission took a first step last week toward requiring public companies to disclose the risks they face from climate change and emissions reduction policies, so the oil and gas industry is looking to show that it is acting voluntarily.

But API’s shift on carbon pricing is the biggest development, although it remains to be seen whether the nod from the oil industry will persuade lawmakers to back the policy.

API is not endorsing a specific carbon pricing policy, leaving unanswered critical questions about how high a tax on companies should be and how to handle the revenue raised by it.

That’s intentional, Sommers said, because API wants to “provide flexibility to lawmakers as they develop these policies.”

Sommers said API won’t be lobbying for a carbon tax to be included as part of the Biden administration’s forthcoming infrastructure package, which is expected to feature major spending on clean energy.

“We would not support adding a price on carbon to a big infrastructure bill as a pay-for,” Sommers said. “We are not designing this to be some new flywheel for government spending. It is meant to address climate change.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Critics say the support of business groups for carbon pricing won’t spur a legislative breakthrough unless they pour lobbying money behind the policy.

“Time will tell if industry support is any more than the political theater of the moment,” said Ben Ratner, the senior director with the Environmental Defense Fund+Business. “It’s one thing to support a concept and quite another to support a bill.”

TAGS: News Energy and Environment Fossil Fuels Carbon Tax Climate Change American Petroleum Institute Chamber of CommercE

API talking points, see ukraine watershed (demonized")

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/fox-news-dominated-coverage-congressional-hearing-big-oil-and-gas-prices

no lnx vid grf

Fox News dominated coverage of congressional hearing on Big Oil and gas prices

Fox’s Big Oil hearing coverage was more than triple CNN’s and MSNBC’s coverage combined

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER

PUBLISHED 04/08/22

Since last year, Fox News has been trying to pin the blame of rising fuel costs on President Joe Biden through its relentless coverage. The April 6 congressional hearing — by the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee — on the oil industry’s role in driving record high gas prices and earning record profits posed a threat to that right-wing media narrative.

In response, Fox News programs devoted 49 minutes of coverage to the hearing, much of which defended Big Oil and insisted that Biden’s policies are responsible for high gas prices. In comparison, CNN and MSNBC covered the hearings for only 10 minutes and 4 minutes, respectively, effectively letting Fox shape the narrative around this moment and failing to use it as a catalyst to inform viewers on the myriad factors that are driving the price at the pump.

Fox covered Big Oil hearing for over three times as long as CNN and MSNBC combined

Fox leveraged the Big Oil hearing to defend the industry and redirect blame at Biden

On April 6, nearly every hour on Fox News — from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. EDT — featured coverage of the congressional hearing on the oil industry and gas prices. The vast majority of this coverage ran cover for the industry while shoring up one of the network’s most dominant narratives around gas prices — that Biden is to blame.

The claim is false; presidents and their policies have little effect on the price at the pump in the short term and even less impact on how gas is priced in the global market. It also ignores the fact that prices have been rebounding since economies across the globe began reopening from the COVID-19 lockdowns last year. But that hasn’t stopped Fox News from repeatedly tethering gas price hikes to Biden’s policies.

Fox’s coverage of the hearing started with the network’s early morning program, Fox & Friends First. Fox Business correspondent Cheryl Caseone reported on the hearing and cited “misguided policies from the administration” as the key drivers of inflation and high energy cost. Other segments throughout the day highlighted industry talking points, including the claim that “rhetoric from the Biden administration” has had a “chilling effect” on oil production. Anchor Martha MacCullum began her coverage of the Big Oil hearing on The Story with Martha MacCullum by highlighting the findings of a recent Fox poll (a self-fulfilling prophecy) that “Republicans and 68% of registered voters say that the Biden administration is to blame for high prices at the pump.”

Video From the April 6, 2022, episode of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum

In defense of oil companies, Fox host and guests, which included oil industry executives, suggested they were a scapegoat for Biden’s failed policies. Appearing on America’s Newsroom, American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers said:

“We all know that the real reason for high prices are a consequence of low production because of some of these Biden administration policies, but also some other factors that are going on throughout the world. So — but this is a typical blame game we see all the time on Capitol Hill. It is pretty outrageous, though, that they're hauling American executives that supply 11 million American jobs up before Congress to blame them for something that they themselves can be blamed for.”

Similarly, Dan Eberhart, another oil industry CEO, appeared on America Reports and called the hearing a “big show trial.”[anti-commie]

Earlier in the program congressional correspondent Chad Pergram began his report by saying: “Democrats who control the House, Senate, and White House are struggling to address the price surge, so they need a scapegoat. Oil companies. Attacking big business is good politics for the Democratic base. They tried to focus on profits and turned on the witnesses.”

In reality, the industry’s record profits and related decisions to not increase production at a time consumers are hurting from high energy costs seems to expose something wrong, if not unjust, that should be examined by policymakers.

Some segments went so far as to defend Big Oil’s record profits, including by highlighting the losses the industry faced during the early phases of the pandemic when gas demand plummeted due to nationwide stay-at-home ordinances. Anchor Sandra Smith on America Reports listed all the major oil companies’ losses and profits over the past two years, saying that it was important context to understand the profit loss in 2020 as the companies are being “demonized” for profiting in 2021.

Video From the April 6, 2022, episode of Fox News' America Reports

Notably, while oil industry profits did dip during the pandemic, CEO salaries did not. According to an analysis by BailoutWatch, reported by Gizmodo, oil executives' salaries remained intact in 2020 as the industry was laying off workers while receiving federal handouts:

“The analysis finds that at a dozen oil companies—including big names like Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Phillips 66—CEO pay in 2020 was more than 100 times that of the median worker’s pay. All of those companies laid people off last year, including the nine companies that collectively got $4.8 billion in federal bailout money.”

CNN and MSNBC missed an opportunity to hold Big Oil accountable

CNN and MSNBC dedicated only 10 minutes and 4 minutes, respectively, to covering the April 6 hearing — even as the issue of high gas prices remains a mainstay of cable news. One segment on CNN accounted for nearly all of CNN’s coverage — an over 7-minute joint interview on CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera with Robert Reich, a public policy professor and former labor secretary, and Daniel Raimi, energy analyst with Resources for the Future.

The segment served, in part, as an example of how CNN and MSNBC could have used the hearing to more robustly cut through reductive and agenda-driven industry and right-wing media talking points to provide a more holistic understanding of why gas prices are high and what tools are available to help alleviate cost to consumers.

Video From the April 6, 2022, episode of CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera

The majority of MSNBC’s 4 minutes of hearing coverage was aired in the closing moments of The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle. Host Stephanie Ruhle first laid out the contrasting positions by Democrats and Republicans overseeing the hearing and then told her viewers:

“This might be a good time to let you know that members of this very subcommittee received a whopping $383,000 from Big Oil. And according to the FEC, 97% of that money went to Republicans. So, what did the oil executives have to say about the high prices Americans are paying at the pump? They said it's not their fault.”

Video

CitationFrom the April 6, 2022, episode of MSNBC's The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle

While good, both segments only scratched the surface of the information (on gas prices) and accountability (of the oil industry).

In fact, in October, CNN and MSNBC managed to devote a modest amount of coverage to a congressional hearing on Big Oil disinformation, providing a glimmer of what accountability journalism could look like if cable news shows began seriously interrogating the fossil fuel industry. But the sparse coverage of this latest hearing represents a failure on part of the networks to both build on that accountability and, particularly in this moment, provide necessary context around high prices.

Fox News is shaping discussion around climate and energy issues

The April 6 hearing is not the first time Fox News has dominated coverage of key climate and energy actions or newsworthy moments. After the Green New Deal was introduced in 2019, Fox News relentlessly attacked the climate and justice actions and hammered the same messaging — tethering the proposal to radical socialism, climate alarmism, and economic devastation, while vilifying those who champion it. In comparison, other TV news networks made only a cursory attempt to articulate what the Green New Deal is and what it would accomplish. As a result, for Fox viewers, the Green New Deal has become synonymous with extreme socialism manifested by a fake climate crisis.

In the month following candidate Joe Biden unveiling his climate agenda in July 2019, Fox News aired 7 times the number of segments CNN aired and more than 4 times the segments aired on MSNBC. In fact, the network’s coverage of energy and climate issues in the fall months of the 2020 presidential campaign played a role shaping the related presidential debate questions.

After Biden took office on January 27, 2021, Fox spent approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes that day discussing Biden’s day one executive orders (including canceling the Keystone XL pipeline). CNN spent nearly half as much time, at approximately 53 minutes, MSNBC spent 1 hour and 24 minutes discussing the topics. While this data may not be as striking, it doesn’t include the amount of time Fox spent covering, for example, the canceled Keystone XL pipeline long after the other networks had moved on. Even now, Fox News has still repeatedly invoked the scrapped pipeline as one of the reasons contributing to the current energy crisis, even though the pipeline would not have had an impact on gas prices.

It is troubling to see CNN and MSNBC repeatedly yield coverage of major climate and energy stories to Fox News, and it’s time for the networks to step up.

Methodology

MAP legal arm$:

... Its emergence represented a call by national pro-fossil fuel organizations for local actors to associate, to build an anti-CPP movement that extended beyond the fight’s central political juggernauts like ExxonMobil, Southern Company, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. While the PBEF’s member organizations feature some especially prominent influencers of right-wing energy policy and climate denialism such as the American Petroleum Institute, the organization’s direct leadership is tied to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute/Institute for 21st Century Energy, whose respective presidents Jay Timmons [nam] and Karen Harbert serve as PBEF co-chairs. Both leaders boast impressive careers within the conservative network, and are still central actors today.

Timmons, whose NAM has received millions each from Free Enterprise America, Freedom Partners, and the American Petroleum Institute, was recently featured in an October New York Times article about the United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement speaking on behalf of all American “industry groups.” Harbert has been very active in the last decade, advocating for hydraulic fracturing and the Keystone XL pipeline in 2013, testifying in the Senate to ban crude oil exports in 2015, vocally opposing the Clean Power Plan in 2016, and maintaining throughout the position that climate change is “an open discussion” not necessarily caused...

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Learn more about the Chamber's deception >>

New research found that the Chamber of Commerce knew about the dangers posed by the burning of fossil fuels for decades, but deliberately skewed their external messaging to sow doubt and uncertainty about climate science whenever key climate policy proposals were on the table.

Citing data from U.K.-based think tank InfluenceMap, a recent report from the Senate Committee on the Climate Crisis called the Chamber of Commerce one of “the two most influential opponents of climate action,” along with its founding organization, the National Association of Manufacturers.

Explore the #SlipperySix

The American people deserve answers, and as the Chamber’s President and CEO, Clark must testify. Here is just some of the evidence that members of the House Oversight Committee should ask her to explain:

The Chamber of Commerce Knew About the Dangers of Climate Change Early On

According to research from Brown University, the Chamber had knowledge of the link between fossil fuels and climate change since at least the 1980s.

Harvey Alter, a resources and policy official at the time, gave an internal speech to the International Chamber of Commerce in 1989 during which he detailed the dire climate consequences of burning fossil fuels with astounding accuracy -- including flooding in Bangladesh, drought in California, and the spread of vector-borne disease.

Despite that knowledge, by 1991, the Chamber was already claiming that, “While possible global warming is cause for concern, genuine scientific disputes remain as to the existence, causes, and potential consequences of global climate change.”

The Chamber Worked Diligently on Behalf of Big Oil Member Corporations to Promote Climate Denial, Downplay Climate Risks and Obstruct Action

Between the introduction of the Kyoto Protocol and the EPA’s Endangerment Finding in 2009 (which found that the EPA had the authority to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act), crucial years for the development of the United States’ stance on climate policy, the Chamber launched concerted messaging campaigns using “sixteen unique discourses of delay” to encourage skepticism about climate science and enforce the idea that climate action would hurt jobs and the economy.

The Global Climate Coalition, an industry front group where the Chamber of Commerce was a member and consistently served on its board of directors, led a massive lobbying and PR campaign for over a decade to spread climate denial and disinformation, even while its own scientists reinforced the consensus that burning fossil fuels would indeed cause dangerous global warming.

In 2009, several member companies, including utility companies Exelon, PG&E, and New Mexico utility PNM, publicly exited the Chamber in response to its extreme climate denial.

In the same year, while the Chamber claimed to support “common sense” climate legislation, the Chamber submitted a petition to the EPA challenging its Endangerment Finding and again refuting the science behind climate change and even suggesting it might be beneficial.

During this year’s Chamber of Commerce Energy Summit in East Texas, Senator John Cornyn told an enthusiastic audience that those concerned about climate change and demanding action were part of a “cult” and that climate change “isn’t science, it’s religion.”

The Chamber is the Most Powerful Lobbying Force on Capitol Hill -- and Uses That Power to Oppose Climate Action.

Representatives from fossil fuel companies and utilities like Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, Phillips 66, Entergy, and other major corporations sit on the Chamber’s board of directors.

In 2019, the Chamber began to claim that climate “inaction is simply not an option” and purported to support businesses’ so-called climate leadership. But a report by Change the Chamber, a nationwide coalition working to hold the Chamber accountable, details the Chamber’s recent lobbying efforts to oppose and weaken U.S. climate policy, including public health protections, at the expense of the American public.

As referenced in that study, the Chamber successfully lobbied to alter the EPA’s National Environmental Protection Act to ensure that the agency would no longer measure how new fossil fuel infrastructure might contribute to climate change. The Chamber also successfully lobbied the Senate to vote down three moratoriums on oil offshore drilling, and to vote down a joint resolution to nullify the EPA’s repeal of the Clean Power Plan.

The Chamber has spent nearly $150 million on Congressional candidates opposed to climate action since Citizens United, according to a 2020 Senate report.

In 2017, the Chamber funded a misleading economic study about the costs of joining the Paris Agreement that was widely cited by President Trump as reason for the U.S. to withdraw.

The Chamber is now threatening to pull its support from lawmakers who back President Biden’s $3.5 trillion infrastructure package, which includes crucial climate legislation, and has vowed to “do everything we can to prevent this tax raising, job killing reconciliation bill from becoming law.”

by Samanth Subramanian

Looking into the Future of Capitalism

Published January 27, 2021

Earlier this month, oil major Total took the unusual step of abandoning the American Petroleum Institute (API), the influential trade group that has advocated for the industry’s interests in Washington for more than a century.

As an explanation for quitting the group, Total cited API’s support for the rollback of curbs on methane emissions, its opposition to electric vehicle subsidies, and its funding of electoral candidates who opposed the US’ participation in the Paris Agreement on climate change.

its departure is the starkest example yet of a broader shift of oil companies quitting their memberships in industry bodies and lobbying groups—particularly those that, like API, have been accused of obstructing climate change initiatives.

On its website, API commits to “delivering solutions that reduce the risks of climate change.” On the ground, however, it has been found to have repeatedly stymied new climate-friendly legislation and supported moves such as Donald Trump’s decision to invite drillers into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

In 2019, Total left the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a more niche lobbying group. Shell quit that group as well, as did BP, which additionally left the Western States Petroleum Association and the Western Energy Alliance.

Shell and BP remain members of API, however, as do other major companies such as Siemens Energy, Chevron, LafargeHolcim, and Echinor. A Shell spokesperson told Quartz that the company is “now updating and assessing its membership in 36 global trade associations (API among them)” but that groups like API aren’t expected to be “monolithic in their platforms or advocacy approach.”

A Siemens Energy spokesperson said the company supports decarbonization of the world’s energy system, but that this transformation would not happen overnight: “Natural gas will remain an important interim solution for our global energy system for years to come. Our customers and API share this vision.”

Megan Baldino, the head of corporate communications for BP, said the company monitors its trade association memberships, “especially those we view as only ‘partially aligned’ with us on climate-related issues. We remain committed to trying to influence those associations from within and will publish a trade association update” in the second quarter of this financial year.

Echinor, LafargeHolcim, and Chevron did not respond to a request for comment.

agnes Hall, the campaigns director for 350.org, an advocacy group pressing for laws to combat climate change, identified a buildup from activists and institutional investors as the driving force behind some of these realignments. This buildup has occurred over the course of several years, intensifying since 2015, when the Paris Agreement was signed. That year, 25 institutional investors with more than £45 billion ($62 billion) in assets urged nine listed companies to quit European trade groups such as FuelsEurope and Cefic.

Investors and asset managers have also been demanding more transparency about trade group memberships and lobbying expenditure. Hall said that more than 1,300 investors worth over $14 trillion have pledged to divest from fossil fuels.

Evelyn Dietsche, a senior business lead at the research institute swisspeace, which studies companies in high-risk business environments, also pointed to frictions within firms as a reason for these shifts in stances. “Within these companies, you’ll have some people tasked with looking for the opportunities in the transition to gas or renewable fuels and the company’s future in that, and you’ll have others who, at least until recently, focused their attention on prolonging the status quo,” she said. “At some point, it should become untenable to gloss over that ambiguity.”

But Hall, at 350.org, called these publicly announced departures from trade associations “a clear greenwashing strategy.”

“If Total, BP, Shell, and the oil majors wanted to be coherent with what they try to pass as climate leadership, they would not only leave trade associations pushing back on ambitious climate policies, but they would also immediately start a rapid transition of their business model,” she said.

afmp api big 4: CAFE

Image

Facebook ads by Energy4Us prompted more than 3,300 of the 12,000 public comments on the administration’s rollback proposal, a Times analysis showed.

Credit

More than 3,300 of the 12,000 public comments that D.O.T. has made public contain language identical to that petition, an analysis of the files showed.

The campaign was a product of the fuel and petrochemical manufacturers trade group, widely known as AFPM. However, neither the Facebook ads nor the site identified the industry group. Instead they name a group called Energy4US, which describes itself as “a coalition of consumers, businesses and workers” promoting affordable energy.

Energy4US has close ties to the industry group. According to internet domain records, Victor Adams, listed as an AFPM web manager, registered Energy4Us.org in 2015 using his work email address. Energy4US lists the group as a coalition member, along with about 50 other groups including energy interests, labor groups, a sheriff’s association and even a recreational fishing alliance.

The AFPM board includes representatives from Exxon, Chevron, Phillips 66, Marathon and Koch Industries. The companies all referred queries to the group.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/oil-lobbying-powerhouse-api-notes-concerns-with-fed-pick-raskin

Oil Lobby Powerhouse API Voices Concerns on Fed Pick Raskin

Jan. 31, 2022,

The top U.S. oil and gas trade group expressed concerns about Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination for vice chair for supervision of the Federal Reserve but stopped short of opposing her candidacy, in a break with some industry leaders.

American Petroleum Institute senior vice president of policy Frank Macchiarola said Monday that the group has concerns over some of Raskin’s comments on addressing climate-related financial risk

“We believe that climate-related stress testing and restrictions on capital could undermine our industry’s efforts to deliver affordable and reliable energy while addressing the climate challenge,” Macchiarola said in an emailed statement

Macchiarola said ...

To read the full article log in.

the fossil fuel industry has been using the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine as a pretext to call for continued, and deepened, reliance on its dirty and dangerous products. Fox News’ coverage throughout the crisis has largely echoed the industry’s talking points, specifically the idea that America needs to drill and produce more oil. Critiques from President Joe Biden and his administration related to the industry's untapped leases and record profits have also prompted Fox and guests to leap to Big Oil’s defense in recent weeks.

In the face of another onslaught of fossil fuel talking points from Fox News, other cable news networks have not held the industry accountable by reporting on its role in driving the climate crisis, polluting the environment, and exacerbating geopolitical conflicts. In pivotal moments like this, viewers deserve to learn how our reliance on fossil fuels is leaving us more vulnerable to crises ranging from climate change to foreign wars.

Fox News has absolved Big Oil of any responsibility for energy price increases, while accusing the Biden administration of scapegoating

The fossil fuel industry has waged a billion-dollar campaign to erode the public consensus on climate change, fool the public about its commitment to addressing the climate crisis, and thwart any climate action that could impact its bottom line. The industry’s spin campaign has continued as the crisis in Ukraine escalated, causing economic disruption around the world. Faced with public majorities that are outraged at Russian aggression against Ukraine and “favor developing alternative energy, including wind and solar, over increasing production of fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas,” the industry has instead chosen to obfuscate its refusal to produce more oil and gas, pad its record 2021 profits via anti-consumerist practices, and move to deepen the world’s reliance on its products.

And one of its biggest media cheerleaders has been Fox News.

As tensions between Russia and Ukraine ratcheted up, Fox has been nearly unrelenting in pushing a narrative that the Biden administration’s climate policies emboldened Russian President Vladmir Putin to invade. This push includes Fox figures mentioning the canceled Keystone pipeline approximately 141 times in segments about the Ukraine crisis from February 22-28 and mentioning “energy independence” or “energy security” – industry talking points to promote more domestic drilling for oil and gas – at least 329 times from February 24 through March 9.

After Biden’s March 8 announcement that the United States was banning Russian fossil fuel imports, Fox News hosts and guests blamed him for instituting the same policy that they had previously demanded – all while praising oil and gas companies as “the greatest industry around the world,” deflecting criticism of them as “unpatriotic,” and arguing they are “basically our national defense.”

On the March 8 episode of America’s Newsroom, for example, anchor Sandra Smith parroted the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) debunked talking point about the Biden administration discouraging fossil fuel investment. Fox host and former Trump adviser Larry Kudlow attacked the Biden administration for criticizing the industry’s price gouging and record profits on the March 8 episode of America Reports.

Later that evening on Hannity, host Sean Hannity amplified API talking points that the Biden administration is making it hard to produce more oil; allowed fossil fuel shill Daniel Turner to claim that the Biden administration “wants to send a message to the environmental left” by attacking the industry; and gave energy analyst Phil Flynn a platform to claim that “there’s absolutely no gouging” in gas prices and that the Federal Reserve has been “weaponized” against oil and gas companies. [vid 8th]

the drumbeat of Big Oil talking points continued in the ensuing days.

On the March 9 episode of The Faulkner Focus, anchor Harris Faulkner hosted API President Mike Sommers to blame Biden for high energy prices: “Some of the policies that are being pursued right now by this administration are putting us on a road to more dependence – not independence.”

Similarly, Fox host Jesse Watters hosted oil company CEO Dan Eberhart on the March 10 episode of Jesse Watters Primetime to push for more domestic drilling and complained that the Biden administration has been treating the industry as “war profiteers.”

The narrative was still being pushed into this new week. On the March 15 episode of The Story with Martha MacCallum, Fox News anchor Sandra Smith suggested that the Biden administration should decrease energy prices for “the American family, the American consumer who is suffering right now” in part by taking a “friendlier approach to the oil and gas industry." Smith repeated this and other arguments to “increase and incentivize drilling” on the March 15 episode of The Five, citing API’s claim that the Biden administration should demonstrate it's not out to “demonize oil companies.”

Fox personality Charles Payne echoed the idea that the Biden administration was “demonizing” oil companies during the March 16 episode of America Reports. [vid]

there is a desperate need for cable news to ramp up its accountability journalism

Despite not promoting these false narratives during the Ukraine crisis as much as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC have largely failed to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for exploiting geopolitical conflicts for profit while driving the climate crisis and degrading the environment for billions of people. The networks have also featured very little coverage about the myriad benefits of clean energy, which include economic stability and energy security (clean energy generation is more price stable and politically stable than fossil fuels).

There is a very clear story that needs to be told about the fossil fuel industry, especially in this moment of rising gas prices and wartime sanctions. As explained by the nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice: “Gas prices are not dictated by White House policy, and the industry’s argument that federal leasing and permitting policies are the source of high gas prices is a flat-out lie crafted to deceive the American public.”

Chasing more fossil fuel leases on public lands and waters would increase industry profits but wouldn’t do anything to decrease today’s gas prices at the pump. It also would keep sending us down the same road of fossil fuel production that is the main driver of the worsening climate crisis. The industry gets the profits, and the American people get handed the resulting wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and coastal flooding caused and exacerbated by climate change. There’s a better road to go down, and it’s the road of clean energy. For as long as we’re addicted to oil for energy, Americans will be subject to big cost increases when a foreign dictator decides to invade another country or there is a change in the world economy.

As a key cog in the fossil fuel industry’s disinformation network, Fox News will never cover this reality. But CNN and MSNBC can no longer afford to miss opportunities to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable in favor of echoing and amplifying Big Oil talking points while the window for meaningful climate action is rapidly closing.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-heaps-praise-fossil-fuel-industry-russian-war-ukraine-rages

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/u-s-oil-industry-trade-group-changes-lawyers-as-gas-prices-soar

march 17, 2022,

Ryan Meyers replaces Paul Afonso at American Petroleum Institute

Trade group copes with fallout from the Russia-Ukraine conflagration

The American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the U.S. oil and gas industry, has promoted from within to replace its former legal chief, Paul Afonso.

Ryan Meyers takes over as the new senior vice president and general counsel, the organization announced Wednesday. Meyers has been vice president and deputy general counsel for the Washington-based association.

A bounce-back message from Afonso’s work email address stated that he’s “no longer with API.” Media representatives for the organization didn’t respond to a request for comment about his departure. Afonso, hired by API in late 2019, also didn’t respond to an inquiry sent to his personal email.

The institute has been grappling with rising U.S. gas prices as it battles the Biden administration over calls to ramp up production to offset shortfalls caused in part by a ban on Russian oil. The group’s chief executive officer, Mike Sommers, criticized the administration this month over oil permits.

API wants the U.S. government embrace shale as a means of easing production woes. Oil industry executives and U.S. officials met this month to discuss the growing energy crisis against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Changing of the Guard

Meyers, a former counsel to now retired Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), was a longtime deputy general counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce before joining API in 2020.

He started his career as an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington before going on to serve as general counsel to former Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.). Meyers also spent time at the Commerce Department and Treasury Department during the second administration of President George W. Bush.

“Ryan has become a trusted adviser to me and many others,” Sommers said in a statement. “Ryan’s broad experience in Washington and across government will serve API well.”

Meyers didn’t respond to a request for comment, nor did assistant general counsel John Wagner, who was elevated to succeed him as API’s deputy general counsel.

In the organization’s statement, Meyers said he’s looking forward to helping “advance America’s energy leadership.”

API hired Sommers, a one-time chief of staff to former House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), to be its leader in 2018.

The organization has numerous lawyers on its payroll, including former Bracewell partner Frank Macchiarola and Kevin O’Scannlain, a former of counsel at DLA Piper and senior counsel at Chevron Corp. who served in the Trump administration.

O’Scannlain, the brother of former Labor Department solicitor Kate O’Scannlain, joined API last year as a vice president of upstream policy. Macchiarola was hired in 2016 and is now senior vice president of policy, economics, and regulatory affairs.

Legal Expenditures

API’s most recent federal tax filing shows that Afonso was paid nearly $394,000 in 2019 after being hired in November of that year to succeed former general counsel and corporate secretary Stacy Linden, who received $678,500 from the trade group.

Linden spent a dozen years at API before joining Stoel Rives as a partner in mid-2019. She left that law firm the following year to become a senior director for ethics and compliance at global drug giant AstraZeneca PLC.

Afonso joined the organization after serving as a partner at Brown Rudnick in Boston, where he co-chaired the firm’s energy and utility group and government law and strategies group. At API, his title was chief legal officer and corporate secretary.

API’s 2019 tax filing shows that the registered nonprofit paid nearly $2.2 million in legal fees that year to Covington & Burling, which currently employs Kyl as a senior adviser in Washington. Covington has had a role on more than 25% of cases involving API in U.S. federal courts since 2007, according to Bloomberg Law data.

In recent years, API has found itself caught up in climate change litigation filed by municipalities against major oil industry players for allegedly making misleading statements about the potential harmful environmental effects caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the fossil-fuel industry.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Baxter in New York at bbaxter@bloomberglaw.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chris Opfer at copfer@bloomberglaw.com; John Hughes at jhughes@bloombergindustry.com

alpha news syndicator/aggregator? "bios coming soon" new lamestream press will not cover BS

(Daily Caller News Foundation) — Major U.S. oil and gas industry groups urged the Biden administration Thursday to boost domestic energy production amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On Thursday, the global price of oil surged past $100 per barrel for the first time in nearly eight years after Russia unleashed a full-scale offensive against Ukraine. Oil prices are the largest factor in determining gas prices for fossil fuel companies.

Russia provided more oil to the U.S. than any other country except Canada between January 2021 and November 2021, U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed. The country, which exported nearly 65% of the 10.5 million barrels of crude oil per day it drilled in 2020, is Europe’s largest oil supplier as well.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden unveiled another round of economic sanctions targeting Russia along with Western allies. The president acknowledged during remarks at the White House that energy costs, including pump prices, may increase as a result of the sweeping sanctions package, but he said it was critical to respond aggressively to Russia.

“API condemns Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, and American natural gas and oil producers have a critical role to play in supporting our European allies with access to a stable supply of reliable and affordable energy,” American Petroleum Institute (API) President and CEO Mike Sommers said in a statement.

“With both geopolitical tensions and energy costs rising, American energy leadership can serve as a stabilizing force while strengthening global energy security,” Sommers said. “Our industry is committed to working with the administration to do everything possible to minimize any impacts on U.S. consumers while supporting our allies overseas.”

API represents around 600 different energy firms, making it one of the largest U.S. oil and gas industry groups. Another major industry group, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), also stressed the need for domestic production, saying it would benefit both the interests of the U.S. and its allies.

“The United States has shown its global energy dominance over the past decade. Unfortunately, this has been threatened by the current Administration’s policies against domestic natural gas and oil production,” IPAA COO Jeff Eshelman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “Make no mistake, natural gas and oil production here at home benefits not only our nation, but also our worldwide allies. For America, it means less reliance on oil imports from unfriendly countries.”

Eshelman added that greater American energy production means “freedom from hostile nations” for people across the world.

Additionally, Power the Future, a group that advocates for U.S. energy independence, wrote a letter to the White House on Thursday, urging the administration to reverse course on its energy policies. The letter, obtained by the DCNF, said the president’s energy agenda has proven to be a failure.

Since taking office, Biden has waged a war on fossil fuels, nixing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ditching an oil drilling project in Alaska, staying silent on a court ruling that prohibited an offshore drilling lease in the Gulf of Mexico, attempting to ban new drilling leases on federal lands and making it harder for utilities to gain approval for natural gas projects.

The U.S. is set to return to being a net importer of crude oil in 2022 under the Biden administration, according to federal projections. The U.S. became a net exporter of total energy in 2019, factoring in both coal and natural gas trade, and a net oil exporter in 2020.

Meanwhile, Europe has faced an energy crisis throughout the winter as wind power has underperformed and countries turned to natural gas imported from Russia. Russia provides Europe with almost 47% of its natural gas supply, the latest European Union data showed.

Russia, though, manipulated gas flows to Europe in recent months, causing massive price surges. On Tuesday, Germany halted the certification of direct Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which was completed in September 2021 after the Biden administration stripped sanctions on the $11 billion project.

The American Gas Association (AGA), a group that represents U.S. energy utilities, said the Biden administration must heed the lessons from the European crisis. The current cost of natural gas in the U.S. is $4.38 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) compared to the roughly $40 per mmBtu Europeans are paying.

“With the unfolding chaos abroad and disruption to Europe’s energy markets, natural gas prices for America’s homeowners and business are expected to remain stable,” AGA President and CEO Karen Harbert told the DCNF in a statement. “America’s abundant natural gas supply and vast delivery system insulates us from instability across the ocean and unstable leaders with reckless political agendas.”

“But we cannot ignore the fact that there are areas of the country that have refused to build the necessary infrastructure to bring natural gas to customers that need it, resulting in reliance on shipments of liquified natural gas from abroad, the high prices and instability that go along with that,” she said.

Harbert noted that European consumers are facing significantly higher energy bills because leaders have “turned their backs on natural gas and the delivery infrastructure.”

“We should not follow their example,” she said. [nordstream 2?!]

On Jan. 25, as tensions increased along Ukraine’s borders, the White House announced it would help facilitate greater non-Russian natural gas flows into Europe. Such imports would come from North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the U.S.

https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/blog/2022/03/01/voters-to-biden-us-gas-oil-strengthens-global-security

news: President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address tonight. Americans will be listening closely to how he defines our security challenges and charts the path ahead. While it’s unclear what lies ahead as Russia invades Ukraine, we know one thing for sure: American energy is a positive force in difficult times, helping to provide stability for ourselves and our allies in Europe. Indeed, because of their commitment to technology and innovation, America’s natural gas and oil producers are able to use the vast abundance of energy right under our feet.

Perspective: According to one estimate by the International Energy Agency (IEA), nearly half of all energy used globally in 2040 will come from natural gas and oil – even if all 196 nations party to the Paris Climate Agreement meet their emissions reduction goals. While innovations are well underway to meet a lower-carbon future, the fact is that we’ll need more of these critical resources – not less – as the world’s population hits a projected 9 billion people by midcentury.

The Big Question: So the important consideration is where that natural gas and oil gets produced: Here in America, which requires operators to meet environmental standards and safety laws [HALLIBURTON DR GAG 2005 YOU BASTARD] that are among the most stringent on the planet? Or, should production shift overseas to nations which may have fewer environmental protections and regulatory oversight?

Here At Home: The answer is obvious and voters agree, according to new polling by Morning Consult on behalf of API:

90 percent of voters support the U.S. developing its own domestic sources of energy rather than relying on other regions of the world (Democrats 92%; Independents 86%; Republicans 90%).

85 percent believe producing natural gas and oil here in the U.S. helps America maintain a leadership role during a period of global uncertainty (Democrats 82%; Independents 78%; Republicans 91%).

85 percent believe that producing natural gas and oil here in the U.S. could help lower energy costs for American consumers and small businesses (Democrats 81%; Independents 80%; Republicans 90%).

84 percent agree that producing natural gas and oil here in the U.S. helps make our country and allies more secure against actions by other countries such as Russia (Democrats 83%; Independents 78%; Republicans 88%).

30,000-Foot View: With global supplies disrupted, America has the energy abundance and the expertise to sustain reliable supply in the decades ahead and is currently working full throttle to enhance energy security for our allies abroad. As President Biden enters the House Chamber this evening, few things are more paramount than increasing energy security at home and abroad. Taking actions to restrict U.S. natural gas and oil are steps in the wrong direction.

Action Items: Here are several actions America’s natural gas and oil producers hope that the President will take in tonight’s State of the Union speech:

Emphasize Energy Security and LNG Infrastructure: As Russia escalated threats against our European allies late last year, the U.S. overtook Australia and Qatar as the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter. Experts predict America will surpass all other nations in creating the most LNG capacity by year’s end. And for a period in January, American LNG shipments to Europe overtook Russian natural gas pipeline deliveries for the first time ever. America’s allies agree: LNG is an energy security game-changer – and the administration should take actions to ensure supply and build infrastructure. Absent restrictions and polices to curtail production, the U.S. can do even more to help Europe. The administration can move faster in authorizing additional LNG exports and should ensure LNG facilities here have the flexibility to increase export volumes if needed. It should also ease barriers that block U.S. support for overseas natural gas infrastructure projects.

Reduce Permitting Uncertainty: News last week that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had voted along partisan lines to significantly increase regulatory barriers for approving natural gas pipelines could have a direct impact on America’s response to the current geopolitical situation. FERC’s decision inserts more uncertainty into the approval process at exactly the time operators need clarity. Unfortunately, FERC is not alone in issuing restrictive policies. In an op-ed in The Hill, Ellen R. Wald, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, detailed the many restrictive actions the administration has put in place at the same time they’ve asked oil producers to increase production: “Oil prices are high enough that companies should be producing more and planning for growth, but they are not,” Wald wrote. “The White House should be working to alleviate producers’ concerns about … the permitting process and other regulatory issues so that producers can feel confident investing profits in future oil production. After all, more supply means more reasonable prices. This is perhaps the quickest way to lessen pain at the gasoline pump.”

Reject Protectionist Policies: Americans are struggling with inflation and rising energy bills. And instituting an export ban on LNG, as 10 Senators asked President Biden to implement is not a solution. Increasing LNG exports are not to blame for higher domestic costs. (For example, an Energy Information Administration report cited pipeline restrictions in New England as a key factor in local price increases.) Only about 10% of U.S. natural gas is sent overseas as LNG. And when exports grew the most, in 2019, domestic natural gas prices not only didn’t rise, but fell to three-year lows. Department of Energy studies under the Obama and Trump administrations concluded that rising LNG exports have a negligible impact on domestic prices. Amid high inflation, global instability and a worsening European energy crisis, the most important move federal policymakers can make is to signal that America is well-positioned to provide stability amid any supply disruption – and can do so without increasing costs at home. Hopefully, President Biden will continue to reject export bans that would undermine energy security.

Promote American Energy Leadership: Over the previous decade, as the benefits of the Shale Revolution were realized and policies were put in place to allow natural gas and oil development, America gained our energy independence and became a net exporter of natural gas and oil. And as the world emerges from the economic chaos and disruption caused by the pandemic, America is again the world’s top producer of natural gas and oil. However, a dip in production has meant a return to being a slight net importer in crude and refined products. The path to restoring energy dominance is in avoiding policies that restrict future investment or hinder supply. Last weekend’s decision by the Interior Department to freeze certain new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters is a great example. President Biden should announce its reversal tonight. Imperiling lease sales threatens supply and discourages the kinds of investments that enables energy leadership and lower, stable consumer costs. The President should also ensure the completion of the next five-year offshore leasing program, which should be in place July 1, 2022. President Biden should move forward with a new plan to head off another massive restriction on American energy production.

What They’re [HUH?] Saying: “We commend the administration’s focus on addressing climate change and share the goal of reducing emissions across the economy, but we cannot let that objective detract from the clear and present need for continued responsible investment in oil and natural gas development. Recent developments illustrate the importance of the government working collaboratively with industry to ensure U.S. energy and economic security, as well as that of our allies in Europe and around the world. Now more than ever, the administration should speak clearly and without equivocation that the United States will be a reliable producer and supplier of oil and natural gas to our allies around the world both now and in the future.” –API President and CEO Mike Sommers

About The Author

Lem Smith is API’s vice president for Federal Relations. Lem joined API in February 2020 as vice president for Upstream Policy & Industry Operations. He previously served as a principal at Squire Patton Boggs, an international law and public-policy firm, where he advised private and public sector clients on federal and multi-state policy matters and provided counsel on communications strategies, campaign affairs and crises management. Previously, Lem was director, U.S. Government & Regulatory Affairs at Encana, and responsible for all aspects of U.S. government relations and regulatory policy matters at the state and federal levels. Prior to that, Lem was director of Government Relations for Kerr-McGee Corporation. Lem began his career on Capitol Hill, working for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker (Mississippi) and the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood (Georgia), where he negotiated key member priorities within the 2005 Energy Policy Act (EPAct). Lem is a graduate of the University of Mississippi.

API attacks on methane safeguards contradict science and drag the industry backwards

https://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2019/03/01/api-attacks-on-methane-safeguards-contradict-science-and-drag-the-industry-backwards/

methane is a powerful pollutant responsible for more than 25 percent of climate change we experience today—and the oil and gas sector is the largest industrial source of methane emissions. Recent scientific evidence only underscores the importance of addressing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.

Unfortunately, at the request of the American Petroleum Institute (API) and others in industry, the Trump administration has issued a proposal to dramatically weaken common sense standards that address oil and gas emissions, allowing for an increase in pollution. In addition, reports suggest that EPA is moving forward with a second proposal that could entirely remove the direct regulation of methane in the oil and gas sector, which would fly in the face of the well-established scientific record documenting the harms of this powerful pollutant and would disregard the substantial amount of pollution emitted from oil and gas sources.

While some companies like Exxon and Shell are increasingly recognizing the critical importance of taking actions (including supporting methane regulations) to reduce this harmful pollution, API is doing its best to drag the industry backwards by pushing EPA to disregard the scientific evidence and deregulate methane altogether.

In December, the industry association continued its longstanding opposition to methane safeguards in its comments on EPA’s first proposal to weaken common sense methane standards for new and modified sources in the oil and natural gas sector. API’s comments encouraged EPA to dramatically weaken current requirements, and suggested that the agency does not need to regulate methane emissions directly—despite the oil and gas industry’s well-recognized methane problem. ExxonMobil and other companies broadly endorsed API comments on weakening current requirements, a position at odds with company commitments to support sound and effective methane regulation. However, ExxonMobil did break from API by urging EPA to continue regulating methane emissions directly – an important recognition of the threat methane poses.

Unfortunately, many companies, including some that have made commitments to methane reduction, continue to allow API to speak for them—tacitly endorsing a position at odds with science that only deepens risks to industry’s license-to-operate. Now is the time for responsible companies, who themselves have recognized the importance of addressing this significant problem, to distance themselves from API’s harmful positions.

API’s longstanding opposition to methane regulation

API’s recent comments continue its long history of trying to block progress on methane reductions. For example, when EPA was first developing methane standards for new facilities in the oil and gas industry in 2015, API argued that direct regulation of methane was “unlawful” and “unnecessary,” claiming methane emissions from the sector aren’t a significant contributor to climate change. This opposition stemmed in part from the group’s recognition that methane standards for new sources “would trigger an obligation” for EPA to address pollution from existing oil and natural gas sources—which account for the vast majority of methane emissions from the sector. While EPA rejected API’s arguments in the final 2016 new source standards, API has continued to push for weakening and removal of methane standards in its most recent comments while making claims that voluntary initiatives are sufficient to address the industry’s methane issues.

API’s positions are increasingly out-of-step with industry leaders, such as ExxonMobil and other companies in the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), which recognize the threat that methane emissions poses for both the climate and for any future role of natural gas.

A dangerous stance

Fundamentally, API’s opposition to methane regulation (and resistance to even recognizing methane as a pollutant) ignores the serious harm posed by methane pollution from the oil and gas industry. EPA recognized this threat in 2016 when it adopted the New Source Performance Standards for the oil and gas industry (NSPS), where the agency underscored, based on extensive evidence, that methane is a harmful pollutant and the oil and gas sector is a substantial source of this pollution. The agency concluded it had an obligation to adopt common sense standards to reduce the pollution.

Since the finalization of the NSPS, new evidence has emerged conveying the scale of oil and gas methane pollution, such as a study last year that found methane emissions from the industry are more than 60% higher than estimated by EPA. The new data, combined with the destructive impacts of climate change, only reinforce the importance of addressing this powerful pollution. Just this month, a new paper from the American Geophysical Union described atmospheric methane’s increase since 2007, saying methane reductions from the oil and gas industry are urgently needed and “essential” to meeting global climate protection goals.

API’s attempts to encourage the Trump administration to remove methane regulation completely ignore this overwhelming (and growing) body of scientific information. Previous Trump administration attempts to deregulate the oil and gas sector—where the agency took actions at odds with the underlying factual record—have already run afoul of the courts. EPA’s recent proposal exhibits these same shortcomings.

Should EPA move forward with a proposal to remove methane regulation, as urged by API, the agency would be disregarding an enormous body of scientific evidence and doubling down on its deeply flawed approach. Even as some in industry recognize that their continued legitimacy in the public sphere depends on recognizing climate science and taking action in line with widely shared and scientifically-based climate goals, they continue to endorse API’s retrograde advocacy.

And while companies like Exxon have recognized standards for controlling methane emissions from existing sources are important to reduce this harmful pollution, as well as feasible and critical for natural gas’ future in the clean energy transition, API continues to reflexively oppose regulation at these facilities. This lowest common denominator approach is out of step with the successful methane management programs that many API member companies are already implementing, including at existing sources. For example, companies like Noble and Anadarko are complying with—and thriving under—protective Colorado leak detection standards for existing sources. Other companies are going beyond compliance and making investments in the future of methane mitigation, as Equinor has with their work on drone-based mobile methane monitoring.

EDF supports companies’ commitments to reduce methane emissions from their own operations and has worked with industry to develop innovative methane solutions. However, market incentives and voluntary reductions aren’t enough to address the full scope of the methane problem in the oil and gas sector, as API has long claimed. Because companies capture additional product when they cut methane emissions, methane abatement programs are often extremely cost-effective—but pure market mechanisms do not account for the harm to society from methane, and are therefore insufficient to drive the emissions reductions that are needed from the industry, as Catherine Hausman of the University of Michigan described in a recent policy brief. Likewise, voluntary programs don’t address the full scope of the problem—for instance, only about one percent of America’s thousands of oil and natural gas producers are members of API’s voluntary program to address methane emissions, the Environmental Partnership.

Strong methane regulations are needed to provide protections for all Americans and a baseline, level playing field for all in the industry. API’s advocacy against methane regulations ignores the clear health and environmental threat of unchecked methane emissions and further exacerbates risks the industry faces as investors and consumers increasingly demand clean energy. It is time for industry leaders to stop allowing API to drag them backwards.

ExxonMobil and Shell lead as counterparts lag on EPA’s first methane rollback proposal

Leading methane commitment from Exxon’s U.S. driller: Why it matters

In tackling methane, Exxon signals commitment to maximize opportunity for New Mexico

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-environment/2020/08/13/379735/epa-finalizes-rollback-of-methane-regulations-for-oil-and-gas-industry/

oil and gas producers in Texas are set to face fewer regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, as the EPA finalized on Thursday its rollback of Obama-era methane regulations for the industry.

Under the new rules, oil and gas producers are no longer required to detect and repair methane leaks from wells, pipelines and storage sites.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. By some estimates, it's 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at heating the atmosphere, though it stays in the atmosphere for less time.

Oil and gas operations make up the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the U.S. — and much of those emissions come from Texas, the country's top oil and gas producer.

"We are the largest oil and gas producing state. We do not have methane regulations in Texas," said Colin Leyden, the Director of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs with the Environmental Defense Fund. "Our only protection comes from these federal rules."

Leyden said tackling methane is one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas industry.

"It can be done relatively cheaply — it is being done in other states that have state rules — and with very little to no impact on oil and gas operations," he said. "So it’s really the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to removing climate pollutants right now."

Because methane stays in the atmosphere for a shorter period of time — about a decade — reducing methane emissions can be felt more immediately.

"It’s something that we can do that can have an impact in the very short term on climate," Leyden said.

Methane accounts for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, according to estimates by the EPA. But some research has put into question how the EPA is calculating methane emissions — particularly in the Permian Basin.

Data from the Environmental Defense Fund, found about 3.5% of the gas produced in the Permian Basin is leaked into the air, nearly triple the EPA's nationwide estimate.

At a press conference in Pittsburgh Thursday to announce the rollbacks, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the new rules are meant to ease the regulatory burdens facing the industry. He said the rules will save the oil and gas industry between $17-$19 million a year.

"These are important savings, especially to small and mid-size oil and gas operators," Wheeler said.

The American Petroleum Institute and many independent oil companies — though not all — have supported the rollback.

"We support this revision as it is consistent with the requirements of the Clean Air Act," API Senior Vice President of Policy, Economics and Regulatory Affairs Frank Macchiarola said in a press release. "Our industry continues to drive down methane emissions from operations while meeting America's energy needs every day.”

The trade group said that monitoring for volatile organic compounds will also decrease methane emissions and that monitoring specifically for methane adds “another layer of government regulation.”

But major oil companies like Shell, BP and ExxonMobil have spoken out against the rollbacks and pledged to reduce their methane emissions.

"There is a minimal cost of doing business in the fossil fuel industry," John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, previously told KUT. "If you can't bear that cost because your business model requires you to emit [methane], then there's something wrong with your business model and you shouldn't be doing business."

Leyden said as other countries start to prioritize cleaner, more climate-friendly gas, Texas gas could lose its competitive advantage.

"These EPA methane rollbacks, they’re not just bad for climate policy, but they’re a competitive disadvantage for U.S. gas in a world that’s demanding cleaner energy," he said.

Though the final rule was published today, it's likely to face legal challenges, and could be undone if presidential candidate Joe Biden wins the election in November.

A copy of the new rules can be viewed, here.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/11/02/epa-methane-emissions-oil-gas/

no lnx

As world leaders seek to rein in methane, Texas' oil and gas industry pressured to cut emissions

A proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule could require oil and gas producers to monitor and reduce emissions of methane in the field.

BY ERIN DOUGLAS NOV. 2, 2021

A gas flare in the Eagle Ford oil patch south of San Antonio. Texas flares the most gas of any state, according to data compiled by S&P Global Platts.]

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed tighter controls Tuesday on the oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases that causes climate change.

As world leaders meet in Scotland this week to seek international agreements to slow and mitigate the effects of climate change, federal regulators released a draft of a new rule to require oil and gas companies to monitor and reduce emissions of methane, a gas that is released during the drilling of oil wells and can be leaked from oil and gas equipment.

“It is now abundantly clear that America is back and leading by example in confronting the climate crisis with bold ambition,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. “With this historic action, EPA is addressing existing sources from the oil and natural gas industry nationwide, in addition to updating rules for new sources, to ensure robust and lasting cuts in pollution across the country.”

The Texas Tribune]

The rule, if approved, could require companies to use specialized equipment to identify the colorless gas on a quarterly basis and repair leaks, as well as impose tighter restrictions on controlling emissions from both new and old wells. The EPA estimates the rule could reduce methane emissions by 41 million tons by 2035. The agency intends to issue a final rule before the end of 2022.

Texas will play a key role in the nation’s efforts to reduce methane emissions. The state produces the largest share of the nation’s oil, a major contributor to global methane emissions. But state leaders have protested calls to shift the energy industry — a key pillar of the state’s economy — away from its reliance on producing the greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels.

After United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Texas needs to reduce its reliance on oil — and suggested the state could lead the way in a transition to renewable energy sources — Gov. Greg Abbott responded with a tweet that said “Pound Sand” and pointed to high gasoline prices to argue that “Texas oil and gas is needed right now.”

A spokesperson for the governor did not respond to questions about the proposed methane rule.

Methane emissions are the second-largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, and methane is commonly referred to as a “potent” greenhouse gas because of its dramatic ability to warm the earth. Methane traps about 30 to 90 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, according to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, but lasts in the atmosphere for a few decades rather than a few centuries.

For that reason, climate scientists say that cutting methane emissions is one of the most effective short-term tools humanity has to reduce immediate damage from climate change.

The EPA’s proposed rule comes after UN scientists said in a recent report that the oil and gas industry has the largest potential of any sector to reduce its methane emissions and as the U.S. and the European Union announced a pledge to dramatically cut the potent greenhouse gas’ emissions. It also follows intense questioning of oil and gas company executives by a congressional committee last week.

The committee questioned top executives at major companies including ExxonMobil and Chevron the same day that the president announced the revised framework for the Build Back Better Act that targets $555 billion for climate initiatives.

Congress is still negotiating whether to include a fee on methane emissions in the legislation, which oil and gas lobbying groups have opposed. During the House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on climate misinformation Thursday, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., pressed ExxonMobil, Chevron Corp., Shell and BP executives on their support for trade organizations that have sought to block the fee.

“You’re funding these groups, and they’re really having an impact,” Khanna said. “You could tell them to knock it off, for the sake of the planet. You could end the lobbying.”

The executives did not commit to ending their support for such groups, instead stating that they would be “active members.”

The largest source of methane emissions in the U.S. is from fossil fuels, according to a 2020 study in Environmental Research Letters. Sixty percent of methane concentrations in the atmosphere come from human sources, like cow patties, landfills and oil production. Globally, the agriculture and waste sector and the fossil fuel sector contributed roughly the same increases in methane concentrations to the atmosphere in 2017.

Methane emissions are climbing — and they didn’t slow last year even as lower economic activity early in the COVID-19 pandemic caused carbon dioxide emissions to fall. Instead, concentrations of methane increased by 15 parts per billion last year, the biggest increase since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s records began almost four decades ago. Scientists say methane emissions don’t follow short-term economic activity as closely. For example, the number of cattle was largely unchanged by business closures in 2020, but carbon dioxide emissions fell dramatically when many people stopped driving their cars.

“When I see big jumps, that’s frightening because methane is such a strong warming agent,” said Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University. “We’re loading the atmosphere with additional warming.”

The Texas oil and gas industry has been under pressure for years to curb methane emissions that escape during production as natural gas, which is primarily made up of methane and other hydrocarbons, comes up along with oil during fracking.

“Every natural gas leak, or intentional release of natural gas through venting or other processes, constitutes a release of methane,” according to the EPA’s proposed rule. “Reducing human-caused methane emissions, such as controlling natural gas leaks and releases as proposed in these actions, would contribute substantially to global efforts to limit temperature rise.”

The colorless gas can leak from oil and gas equipment during normal operations. Companies also burn off natural gas in the oilfields when drilling wells or during emergencies, such as when facilities need to shut down on short notice.

At times, the industry burns off excess gas that is unearthed along with oil (a higher-priced product) in a process called flaring. If a flare isn’t wholly lit, raw methane escapes into the atmosphere.

Routine flaring without permission from regulators is barred by state law, but companies often request exceptions from the rules; the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the state’s oil and gas industry, authorized almost 7,000 flaring and venting exceptions in 2019, according to agency data. In 2020, the agency granted about 4,500 exceptions, according to agency data, as the COVID-19 pandemic caused an economic downturn in the oil and gas industry.

Railroad Commission spokesperson Andrew Keese said agency data suggests there has been a positive downward trend of flaring in Texas. Keese added that the Railroad Commission revised its exception form last year to require more detailed data, which he said puts the agency in a better position to track compliance and correct potential violations.

But multiple independent analyses, including one by S&P Global using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data, found that oil and gas companies are flaring gas in the field more frequently than approved by regulators. Instruments placed by the Environmental Defense Fund to detect methane in West Texas’ Permian Basin, a major oil-producing shale play, have found that oil and gas facilities are leaking raw methane into the air.

Under President Barack Obama’s administration, the EPA sought to issue rules that would plug those methane leaks in the oilfield, but they were never implemented after the agency rolled them back under the Trump administration.

This week’s draft rule is stronger than the Obama-era rule. It could impose rules on older oil wells that previously avoided regulation. While it stops short of a flat-out ban on flaring, the rule would require operators to monitor flares to detect malfunctions that result in increased methane emissions.

Texas flares the most gas of any state. It also produces the most oil, 40% of the nation’s crude. Regulators have insisted that they’ve cracked down on flaring, an unpopular practice among both Republicans and Democrats. Flaring in Texas was down 50% in 2020 versus 2019 as the pandemic spurred a downturn in oil production, according to an analysis of satellite data by S&P Global Platts, and Texas oil producers burn less natural gas per barrel of oil produced than in North Dakota.

But 2020 data shows that reducing flaring won’t be enough to curb emissions of methane from Texas’ oilfields. While the amount of flared gas has fallen, methane emissions in the West Texas oilfield have continued to climb due to leaking gases from production facilities, according to data compiled by S&P Global Platts Analytics.

“Venting or leakage occurs frequently, specifically in the Permian Basin,” said Andrew Cooper, a low-carbon crude analyst at S&P Global Platts.

He said equipment and storage leaks, unlit flares and old oil wells contribute to methane emissions. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which regulates air emissions in Texas, would be charged with implementing the EPA’s rule on such “fugitive” emissions (like the methane leaks from equipment).

State leaders resist climate efforts

The Texas Railroad Commission has long been criticized for not taking a stronger stance on methane emissions. But the Republican commissioners, who are elected in statewide races, have loudly protested the claim that they haven’t controlled the politically unpopular practice of flaring.

“Citizens are not aware of the good job our staff and this industry has done for a cleaner environment,” Chair Wayne Christian said during a meeting last week.

Still, Christian also called the proposed federal rule on methane “very dangerous.”

“That’s a high-cost risk to every family in the United States,” Christian said.

David Cooney Jr., an attorney in the Railroad Commission’s office of general counsel, said the agency is “poised and ready to cooperate” with the federal rules.

U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, said during the committee hearing with oil executives Thursday that the Biden administration’s climate policies were a “relentless attack” on energy workers and argued that political leaders should instead support the oil and gas industry to spur technology to reduce emissions.

“Instead of vilifying them and trying to end their existence, Congress should be working with them,” Brady said.

Some oil companies have already announced plans to cut back on methane emissions. Royal Dutch Shell said it plans to end routine flaring by 2025, five years earlier than its previous target, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Despite some industry commitments, the EPA rule, if implemented, would be a sharp shift for Texas oil producers that have enjoyed less stringent rules than producers in neighboring states such as New Mexico and Colorado, which have dramatically reduced flaring, venting and leaks through regulation, according to data compiled by S&P Global Platts Analytics.

Scientists say the benefits to cutting methane concentrations in the atmosphere are significant: It would “especially contribute” to reducing climate change-related damages in the near term and decrease peak warming during this century, according to the recent UN report. Methane concentrations in the atmosphere are currently 260% higher than during pre-industrial times.

“We can do something about the excess methane in the atmosphere in a decade, easily, if we choose to, and have a strong bang for our buck,” said Jackson, the Stanford University scientist.

Mitchell Ferman contributed to this story.

Disclosure: Environmental Defense Fund and Exxon Mobil Corp. have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

mahdi

https://books.google.com/books?id=2p6LDwAAQBAJ

3 mil$ nat res almost 2 gas and oil sector; 13x Gore; 1998-2003 hallib over 1 mil$ gop 55k$ dems]; b43 got more oil $ than any other fed cand; 9 days before inaug API HQ K street mtg to draw up wishlist; ez drill fed land, more alaska an GOM, lower royalty for offshore etc; --> energy plan may 2001; API appt to admin: newsweek says not since rise of railroads so many footsoldiers; energy ceo 22.5m$ to BC has constant access to secret energy task force; lay b43 pal had most access; cheney starts mtgs w/ ff ceo contributors;energy sec [NPI advisors] had 109 mtds spencer abraham betw jan and may 2001, incl chevtex, exxxonmobil and enron, all big donors;

arbusto fail bought by spectrum? fail bought by harken (soros and harvard] for 2.25m$ in stock; b43 go 600K$ and bd seat 50-120K/yr

cheney secdeg 1990 got b41 to go after saddam in kuwait b/c of oil; aei kazakstan caspian pipeline operated by chevron, hallib built refineries Tengiz; azerjajan --> hallib ceo oct 1995 (he had good rel w/ saudis as secdef] 1994-2001 rev up 127%

Drilled S3Ep1: The Father of Public Relations

ByGuestonApr 26, 2020 @ 10:55 PDT

Hosted and reported by climate journalist Amy Westervelt, DrilledNews. Featuring: Bob Brulle, environmental sociology researcher at Brown University; and clips from Naomi Oreskes, science histo...

Big Oil's first publicist advised Nazi Germany - HEATED ...https://heated.world › big-oils-first-publicist-advised

Jan 21, 2020 — By 1913, Rockefeller had hired Ivy Lee as Standard Oil's first publicist—meaning the first PR professional in the United States was doing ...

Drilled S3Ep2: The Oil-Nazi-Propaganda Triangle - DeSmog https://www.desmog.com › s3ep2-oil-nazi-propaganda-...

Apr 26, 2020 — That man was Standard Oil PR guy Ivy Lee. He had been working for Farben in the U.S. for about $4,000 a year since 1929.

https://www.desmog.com/s3ep2-oil-nazi-propaganda-triangle/

...A couple years later, Lee has another big breakthrough. He realizes another key part of shaping the story is shaping the language journalists use to describe his clients and what they’re doing.

So by this point his firm has shut down, he and George have parted ways, and he’s working full-time for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He writes the first P.R. advice book, and in it he says the key thing that companies need to worry about is getting the public on their side. And he talks about how you can use language to do that. He gives the example of railroads and the Full Crew Law.

So like I said, at the time there were a lot of wrecks. And actually a lot of them were happening because of negligence and because trains were understaffed. So, the government steps in and they try to impose what they called “full crew” regulations … basically you have to have full staff on your train to make sure it’s safe. But Lee flipped the script on that. He had Pennsylvania Railroad start talking about these regulations as “extra crew” requirements. So just think about that for a second. The difference between “full” and “extra” and what a stroke of genius this was. “Full” implies that the railroads are cutting corners, that their crews are lacking in some way. “Extra” implies that this is not a necessity, that the government is asking railroads to do more than they need to and imposing a burden on them. It’s totally standard industry spin today, but we have Ivy Lee to thank for that.

And that’s a good thing to remember that this kind of thinking was going on in the background of corporate communications, very strategically, more than a 100 years ago, especially when you listen to the way the industry describes itself today.

Oil company ad: We’re leading the world in oil and natural gas production. That means lower energy costs, more growth, more security for Americans. More energy, means more opportunity. We just need the right policies to make it happen.

Amy Westervelt: By the time Ivy Lee began working with Rockefeller in 1914, he was a master at this stuff. And shortly after that, the U.S. joins WWI and Lee is tapped to run publicity for the American Red Cross.

That job puts him in regular contact with the government’s propaganda department, which was also run by a former journalist turned political campaigner, a guy named George Creel. Creel had helped campaign for President Woodrow Wilson with the slogan “He Kept Us Out of the War.” So, now that Wilson was joining the war, he wanted Creel’s help convincing the American public that it was a good idea. And Creel was up to the task. He pulled together both journalists and publicity experts, graphic designers, musicians, filmmakers basically anyone who had worked in or around media and entertainment in any way. And he launches a full blown propaganda campaign across film, print and radio.

Even Ida Tarbell was a member of that commission. It was all hands on deck.

The Creel Commission, and Ivy Lee at the Red Cross, were also tasked with creating a positive image of America outside the country. The guy in charge of that for Creel was Edward Bernays, who just so happened to be the nephew of Sigmund Freud. Bernays put all of his uncle’s psychological know-how to work on behalf of the country. He went on to become one of Lee’s top competitors and, like Lee, to have a large influence on Hitler’s approach to propaganda. But in those days they were focused on selling America to the world, and learning a lot from each other.

One of Bernays’ strokes of genius was to enlist Hollywood in the effort, banning the export of anything that showed America in an even slightly negative light, and funding movies that highlighted the bravery of American soldiers.

It was the broadest and best-funded P.R. effort Lee had ever seen, and the experience taught him one very key thing: if you can pool together enough resources, you can wage an all-out psychological war that’s impossible to beat. Which of course gave him an idea for his best client, Standard Oil. One company, even a company run by the Rockefellers, could only do so much. But what if they came together as an industry? They’d already kinda done it. A Petroleum board of all the companies was pulled together during the war to make sure there was a steady supply of fuel to the front. If they could come together during war, why couldn’t they do it to benefit the industry in peacetime?

Here’s environmental sociologist Bob Brulle:

Bob Brulle: ivy Lee draws on his experience in the war propaganda board effort to start developing larger institutional public relations efforts. And he works with the head of Standard Oil of New Jersey, which we now know as Exxon Mobil, to form the American Petroleum Institute in 1919. And so the American Petroleum Institute is now one hundred years old, and it’s considered to be the really the first modern, sophisticated, public relations oriented trade association in the world.

Amy Westervelt: So in 1919, Ivy Lee begins representing not just the various Standard Oil companies. But also a new oil industry group: the American Petroleum Institute. With the resources of the entire industry behind it, the API didn’t have to choose between media relations and lobbying, or influencing the film industry and the news press. It could do all of it, and more. This is really Ivy Lee’s great and lasting contribution to how the world sees the oil industry today.

For more than a century now, the API has been running a multi-pronged propaganda campaign, indoctrinating Americans with the idea that the oil industry is a fundamental part of American life. It started just after WWI, went right through WWII, and has carried on ever since. Here’s a bit from a short film the API released in 1950 called 24 Hours of Progress:

API clip: The production of oil is a measure of american progress. As our nation grows, so grows the need for petroleum.

Amy Westervelt: Now compare that with this 2018 campaign they ran, called Power Past Impossible:

API clip: I believe the things we’re doing with technology, we’re pushing the boundary of what the oil and gas industry has seen.

Amy Westervelt: So before this guy talks there is a lot of hard-pumping music and some patriotic word salad on screen connecting the oil industry to everything you know and love about America. It is really heavy handed, and very America! Fuck yeah! And it’s clearly trying to target young people. Part of this ad ran during the Super Bowl, other parts showed up all over YouTube and various podcasts. But again, remember the big lesson Ivy Lee brought home from World War I to the oil industry was not just, pool all these resources into a big group that can’t be tracked, but also pool all the resources so you can wage a multi-front, all out propaganda war. So it’s not just commercials that we’re talking about here, it’s way broader and deeper than that. Here’s Dr. Brulle again:

Bob Brulle: The American Petroleum Institute was actively engaging in public relations activity. And I did find some material about their educational outreach to elementary and secondary schools in the 1960s about, you know, getting their viewpoint about energy and petroleum into schools, which starts certainly in the ’60s and continues to this very day.

Amy Westervelt: It’s every aspect of society and culture, from Superbowl ads to educational materials in schools. For 100 years. Repeating the same message: oil is good, oil is American, oil is necessary for progress. Oil is good. Oil is American. Oil is necessary for Progress.

Next time on Drilled, we’ll meet our next spinmaster – Daniel Edelman....

Drilled S3Ep1: The Father of Public Relations - DeSmoghttps://www.desmog.com › ...

Apr 26, 2020 — And the American Petroleum Institute, their trade organization, ... Amy Westervelt: Ivy Ledbetter Lee is widely considered the father of ...

no lnx

drillers.com

...in January 11, 1918, President Wilson signed an Executive Order establishing an Oil Division within the Fuel Administration imposing controls like those on the coal industry. Oil producers of more than 100,000 barrels per year had to get licenses from the Fuel Administration. The administrator obtained the power to allocate oil distributions to those in the greatest need and to establish a system of priorities.

Later in 1918, the National Petroleum War Service Committee began a publicity campaign towards the oil industry warning them of possible government control of the entire industry as it recently did to the railroads. They used the National Petroleum News magazine to claim:

“But the oil industry has a chance to avoid this unhappy issue…It can respond with every energy at its command…organizing itself into a complete unit”.

Their goal was to encourage self-integration of the oil industry.

[ pix The National Petroleum War Service Committee. Sitting with the Committee is Mr. M.L. Requa, General Director of the Oil Division of the U.S. Fuel Administration. It’s through this committee that Mr. Reque was seeking to have the oil industry self-regulating during the period of the war. Taken in the Board of Director’s room of the Standard Oil Co (of New Jersey) 26 Broadway, New York City. Taken: 8/17/1918]

This committee became instrumental in obtaining cooperation between the federal government and the oil industry through World War I and afterward. These led to production control, pooling fuel oil, and price stabilization.

After the war ended, committee members wanted to continue functioning. That decision eventually led to the formation of a new oil industry trade association. This movement caught fire when the federal government tried to impose a war tax.

On September 6, 1918, a New York Times news story reported that a congressional House bill proposed a “war profits and excess profits tax” which threatened future oil explorations and drilling. That story revealed:

“The prediction was made in a report issued yesterday by a committee of prominent oil producers that the exploration for new oil fields and the drilling of wells in unproven territory will practically cease unless some measure of relief from the war profits and excess profits taxes as proposed in the House bill is granted.”

This prediction created a panic within the oil industry.

Thus, the postwar years required the formation of a national association to represent the entire industry to protect themselves from federal government interference.

Formation of the American Petroleum Institute

On March 14, 1919, the committee members met with oil industry representative in New York City to draft a constitution and by-laws for a new trade association. Ten days later a second meeting occurred in Chicago at the American Petroleum League’s annual meeting. On March 26, the league voted to dissolve the National War Service Committee in favor of a new American Petroleum Institute (API).

The API’s original charter emphasized the importance of the industry to the public and country. The charter set forth its purposes as:

Affording a means for cooperating with the government about the industry;

Fostering domestic and foreign trade in American petroleum products;

Promoting the interests of the petroleum industry in its entirety; and

Promoting mutual improvements of its members by studying the arts and sciences related to the oil and natural gas industry.

In the spring of 1919, the API began looking at several federal government agencies. They started with the Federal Trade Commission investigating several oil companies giving away pumps to gas stations to get their business. Should the API try to settle with the FTC or wait for a lawsuit?

Several bills before Congress and state legislatures called for the leasing of public oil lands. Tax laws affecting the oil industry also caught the API’s attention. Also, auto manufacturers approached the API about future output and resolving common problems.

Formulating conservation policies at both the state and federal levels also demanded API attention.

Finally, the emphasis on providing statistics to facilitate future planning by oil producers took precedence.

President Wilson dissolved many of the wartime agencies after the war. Soon after the formation of the API, the federal Fuel Administration began the process for final dissolution. It focused on minor problems instead of national fuel. This left a vacuum for the API to advocate on behalf of the oil industry about national fuel policies and intra-industry cooperation.

The abolishment of many wartime federal agencies between 1918 and 1919 left the oil industry to police itself.

How the U.S. Government Depended on the API

In 1980, a journal article by the Cambridge University Press about the “Formative Years of the American Petroleum Institute” explained how the API used statistics to influence government agencies. It claimed:

“Several understaffed and underfunded government agencies …came to rely on the API’s expanding statistical services instead of further developing their own capacities in this area.”

In essence, the API became the leading source on oil industry statistics for the government from 1920 into the 1970s.

API Mission

The API website declares its mission to promote global industry safety and to influence public policy supporting a viable, strong U.S. oil and natural gas industry.

Over 600 API members include companies involved with...

ref atty 14 pp no duty to warn? eg

http://web.archive.org/web/20161203013952/http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1373100-shell-benzene-litigation-defense-guide.html

ref2 off bs

no lnx

mike Sommers

President & CEO

Megan Bloomgren

Vice President

Communications

Marty Durbin

Executive Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer

Amanda Eversole

Chief Operating Officer

Rolf Hanson

Vice President

State Government Relations

Kyle Isakower

Vice President

Regulatory & Economic Policy

Bill Koetzle staffer rev dr hastert

Vice President

Federal Affairs

bill Koetzle serves as senior vice president of Government Affairs, leading advocacy efforts in Congress, the Administration and federal agencies on industry priority issues. BENZENE?

Before joining API, Koetzle spent a decade at Chevron, managing the company’s legislative, regulatory and political affairs, including the development of the company’s policy positions and advocacy strategy to achieve top priorities. While at Chevron, Koetzle spent time in Asia leading advocacy on Chevron’s tax and environmental priorities, managing government relations, internal and external communications, and community engagement activities in support of the company’s investments in six countries, including China and Thailand.

Prior to his time at Chevron, Koetzle spent a decade working in leadership and policy development roles in the House of Representatives, including as Deputy Republican Staff Director for the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Assistant to the Speaker for Policy and Illinois Director, and Legislative Director for Representative Dennis Hastert (R–Ill.) beginning in 1998. During his time in Congress, Koetzle managed the congressional and district offices for the Representative-turned-Speaker of the House, as well as constituent services and appropriations and was the primary advisor to Speaker Hastert on energy, environment, telecommunications, natural resources and agricultural issues. Koetzle later served as the Senior Vice President for Public Policy at the Institute for Energy Research, a non-profit organization that conducts research and analysis on impacts to global energy markets.

Koetzle graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at Irvine. He went on to earn his master’s and Ph.D. in political science, also from the University of California at Irvine. Koetzle and his family reside in northern Virginia.

Stacy Linden

Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary

Office of the General Counsel

Frank Macchiarola

Vice President

Downstream and Industry Operations

Erik Milito

Vice President

Upstream & Industry Operations

Debra Phillips

Vice President

Global Industry Services (GIS)

Robin Rorick

Vice President

Midstream and Industry Operations

Todd Snitchler

Vice President

Market Development

http://web.archive.org/web/20181126074659/https://www.api.org/about/organization

governance

API is governed by a Board of Directors, which chooses API's officers. The board carries out API's mission by designating segment committees, resource committees, and strategic committees. API members participate in any committees where they have assets and interests.

Committees

Service & Supply Companies

Segment Committees

API has patterned our organization to reflect America’s oil and natural gas industry and ensure every member has a voice. Our members are producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators and marine transporters. They come from the largest oil companies to the smallest independents.

The Upstream Committee is open to companies producing oil or natural gas in the United States (vertically integrated companies may be members of more than one API segment).

Focuses on upstream regulatory policy, legislative issues, and industry technical standards and recommended practices.

Emphasizes efforts to ensure that operations are conducted in a safe, efficient and environmentally responsible manner.

The Market Development Committee is open to companies producing oil or natural gas in the United States (vertically integrated companies may be members of more than one API segment).

Focuses on identifying policy opportunities and impediments to sustaining and growing demand for U.S. natural gas resources in targeted markets, advocating for legislative and regulatory policy and market designs that leverage the full value of natural gas.

Educates potential customers and decision makers on the abundance, reliability, affordability and environmental advantages of natural gas.

The Midstream Committee is open to companies gathering, processing, storing and transporting oil and natural gas in the United States (vertically integrated companies may be members of more than one API segment).

Develops policy positions for gathering, processing, storing and transportation and oversees the review of related federal, state, and local laws and regulations.

Identifies opportunities for technical studies and research to address issues related to development of U.S. infrastructure, use of equipment, development of operational procedures, and safety, health and environmental performance.

The Downstream Committee is open to companies that refine and market petroleum products in the United States (vertically integrated companies may be members of more than one API segment).

Provides guidance on the impact of legislative and regulatory proposals on downstream operations and provides scientific, economic, environmental, and risk analysis information on associated issues.

Develops standards, practices and positions that allow industry to provide products to consumers in the most safe, efficient and environmentally responsible way.

The General Membership Committee addresses the needs of non-oil company members such as service companies, drilling contractors, and other suppliers to the oil and natural gas industry. Members can provide services to any industry segment, including upstream, downstream, marine or pipeline.

Works closely with all other industry segments to promote the shared interests of the industry.

Focuses on both domestic and international issues, particularly international trade issues, since many members in this segment supply products and services worldwide.

Resource Committees

The Committee on Communications oversees API’s outreach to the media and other external audiences to ensure they have the facts and information to develop informed perspectives on energy and industry issues. This includes media relations, external communications, materials and publications development, Internet-based communications, community engagement and other educational outreach.

The Committee on Economics and Statistics oversees API's Policy and Statistics Departments. Committee members provide guidance to API staff in policy analysis and statistical preparation. The committee vets fundamental policy positions and provides guidance to other API departments.

The Committee on Federal Relations implements API policies and programs on industry issues before Congress and the executive branch, and coordinates the government relations efforts of API and its member companies. The committee is composed of the heads of member company offices in Washington, DC, responsible for federal government relations.

The Committee on Finance focuses on internal and external issues related to auditing, accounting, insurance and risk management. It formulates industry responses to regulatory and legislative initiatives and to developments in industry finance areas. The committee, composed of oil industry chief financial officers, sponsors API's Finance and Accounting Program.

The Committee on Health, Environment and Safety is responsible for identifying major health, environment and safety issues that could impact the industry and oversees those programs within API. The committee also promotes sharing best practices and improving industry health, environmental and safety performance.

The Committee on Information Management and Technology oversees API’s interests in information technology; electronic business and telecommunications systems and management; cyber security; data privacy; and industry-level projects for evolving information systems. This committee sponsors API's Information Technology Program.

The Committee on Law ensures API’s legal affairs are handled properly and efficiently. The committee is responsible for reviewing and approving any litigation with which API becomes involved and works closely with other committees to ensure consistency of legal positions on industry issues. The committee is composed of member companies’ general counsels.

The Committee on State Relations establishes industry policy for and ensures the proper management of state legislative and regulatory issues in the 34 states where API staffs state petroleum councils. The committee coordinates with other API committees on policies and priorities at the state level.

The Global Industry Services Committee has jurisdiction over all non-dues programs, such as revenue-generating and cost recovery programs and special solicitations. The committee provides financial oversight, works with API segment committees, and ensures that new opportunities meet API policy.

The Committee on Taxation formulates API tax policy and provides tax advice to the API president and board. The committee determines the priority tax issues, both legislative and regulatory, and sets the overall agenda for the various tax subcommittees and the API Tax Department. The committee is composed of senior taxation professionals at member companies.

http://web.archive.org/web/20180705200611/https://publicintegrity.org/2014/12/04/16320/benzene-and-worker-cancers-american-tragedy

no lnx pix

Bloated and bed-ridden, his skin browned by blood transfusions, John Thompson succumbed to leukemia on November 11, 2009.

A carpenter by trade, Thompson, then 70, had spent much of his life building infrastructure for the petrochemical industry in his native Texas — synthetic rubber plants in Port Neches, chemical facilities in Orange. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, he often encountered benzene, stored on job sites in 55-gallon drums, which he used as a cleaning solvent. He dipped hammers and cutters into buckets full of the sweet-smelling liquid; to expunge tar, he soaked gloves and boots in it.

Thompson never figured the chemical could do him harm. Not when it stung his hands or turned his skin chalky white. Not even when it made him faint. But after being diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia in 2006, relatives say, he came to believe his exposure to benzene had amounted to a death sentence. Oil and chemical companies knew about the hazard, Thompson felt, but said nothing to him and countless other workers.

“They put poison on his skin and in the air he breathed,” said Chase Bowers, Thompson’s nephew. “He died because of it.”

Thompson died before a lawsuit filed by his family against benzene suppliers could play out in court, where science linking the chemical to cancer could be put on display. Over the past 10 years, however, scores of other lawsuits, most filed by sick and dying workers like Thompson, have uncovered tens of thousands of pages of previously secret documents detailing the petrochemical industry’s campaign to undercut that science.

Internal memorandums, emails, letters and meeting minutes obtained by the Center for Public Integrity over the past year suggest that America’s oil and chemical titans, coordinated by their trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, spent at least $36 million on research “designed to protect member company interests,” as one 2000 API summary put it. Many of the documents chronicle an unparalleled effort by five major petrochemical companies to finance benzene research in Shanghai, China, where the pollutant persists in workplaces. Others attest to the industry’s longstanding interest in such “concerns” as childhood leukemia.

Exposed: Decades of denial on poisons

Taken together, the documents — put in context by interviews with dozens of lawyers, scientists, academics, regulators and industry representatives — depict a “research strategy” built on dubious motives, close corporate oversight and painstaking public relations. They comprise an industry playbook to counteract growing evidence of benzene’s toxic effects, which continue to command the attention of federal and state regulators and be fiercely debated in court.

benzene graf

What is benzene?

Benzene is a highly flammable, colorless (light yellow at room temperature), liquid, volatile organic compound with a sweet smell. It evaporates into the air quickly and dissolves only slightly in water. It comes from both natural and industrial sources, and can be found in water, air and soil. It is a known human carcinogen.

How common is benzene?

Benzene is the 17th most-produced chemical in the U.S. and is used in the manufacturing of common household items such as plastics, lubricants, dyes, adhesives and pesticides. The main sources of human exposure to benzene are gasoline and cigarette smoke exposure.

How harmful is benzene?

There is an association with leukemia at a chronic exposure level of 10 parts per million, or lower. A worker exposed at 10 ppm of benzene for 40 years is 155 times more likely to die from leukemia than an unexposed worker.

Benzene is found in:

Cigarette smoke

Solvents

Crude Oil

Diesel exhaust

Gasoline

Styrofoam

Ingredients used to make synthetic rubber, lubricants, dyes, detergents, drugs and pesticides

Occupations linked to benzene exposure:

Steel workers

Refinery workers

Printers

Shoe makers

Laboratory technicians

Gas station employees

Firefighters

"The conspiracy exists, and the conspiracy involves hiding the true hazards of benzene at low doses."

Robert Black, a Houston plaintiff's lawyer who has filed benzene lawsuits

“The conspiracy exists, and the conspiracy involves hiding the true hazards of benzene at low doses,” said Robert Black, a Houston lawyer who represents plaintiffs in toxic tort cases. Since 2004, while handling dozens of lawsuits filed on behalf of workers sickened by leukemia, lymphoma and other diseases associated with benzene, Black has obtained 16,000 pages of internal records detailing the industry’s research tactics, which he shared with the Center. Other lawyers provided an additional 5,000 pages.

The documents may represent the tip of the iceberg. For decades, the petrochemical industry has employed what one litigation guide calls a “comprehensive strategy” for defending against workers’ legal claims. Penned by a senior attorney at Shell Oil, the undated document lays out a coordinated “industry response” aimed at shielding internal company records on benzene. It warns defense attorneys to “avoid unnecessary or inadvertent disclosure of sensitive documents or information,” for instance, and to “disclose sensitive benzene documents only on court order.”

“We don’t know what the health effects are because they’re not going to let us know,” Black said. “It’s an American tragedy.”

Five million Americans at risk

Benzene emissions in the United States have declined sharply since 1987, when federal regulators set the occupational exposure limit at 1 part per million. Over roughly the same period, there has been a 66-percent drop in releases of the chemical into the environment. Yet experts say it remains a formidable threat. “You’re still seeing elevated risks of leukemias and lymphomas among occupational groups exposed to benzene,” said Peter Infante, a former director of the office that reviews health standards at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, who has studied the pollutant for 40 years, “as well as populations being polluted from these benzene sources.”

In May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 5 million Americans — not counting those with workplace exposures — face heightened cancer risks from benzene and 68 other carcinogens spewed into the air by one such source: the nation’s 149 oil refineries. “We are concerned about benzene,” said Kelly Rimer of the EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, which has proposed a rule that would require refinery operators to monitor for the chemical along their fence lines.

Internal documents reveal industry 'pattern of behavior' on toxic chemicals

By David Heath and Jim Morris December 4, 2014

A dozen dirty documents

By Kristen Lombardi and Jared Bennett December 5, 2014

New battlefront for petrochemical industry: benzene and childhood leukemia

By Kristen Lombardi December 8, 2014

“It’s a known human carcinogen,” Rimer said, “and it’s emitted from lots of sectors.”

One month later, California officials lowered the long-term exposure level for benzene from 20 parts per billion to 1 ppb — among the lowest in the country — setting the stage for further emissions cuts at refineries and bulk-oil terminals in that state. Melanie Marty, of the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, said regulatory limits are now “getting lower and lower for [benzene’s] non-cancer risks” — dizziness, rapid heart rate, neurological problems, anemia — and not just its carcinogenic effects.

“We have to make sure we’re not exposing people to things we can do something about,” she said.

A naturally occurring component of crude oil, benzene is used to make household products such as plastics, pesticides and dyes. It remains a key ingredient in gasoline, a source of exposure for workers as well as the public: In 2006, the EPA found benzene to be such a “significant contributor to cancer risk from all outdoor air toxics” that it limited levels in fuel. Even oil executives acknowledge its ubiquity; in documents, they call it “universal” and “a basic petrochemical building block.” Benzene ranks 17th among the top 20 chemicals produced in the United States, according to the federal government.

The petrochemical industry’s decade-long research effort on benzene echoes those launched by other industries — asbestos, tobacco, plastics — that used science to create doubt. These industries have employed a host of tactics to try to convince courts and regulators that a chemical or product causes no harm. At times, they funded their own studies in an attempt to show the lack of adverse effects. Experts say the petrochemical industry has bankrolled more research — at greater cost — than anyone but Big Tobacco, which coined the phrase “manufacturing doubt.”

“The more they feel threatened by the outcome of independent research, the more they will quote-unquote invest in their own,” said Celeste Monforton, a public health researcher and lecturer at George Washington University, who has written about corporate corruption of science. Monforton considers the petrochemical companies’ study of workers exposed to benzene in Shanghai to be the most expensive and elaborate effort by any industry to try to refute damning scientific evidence.

The reason, in her mind, is clear: “Litigation is continuing and potential for environmental exposures is still significant,” she said. “They need to protect their economic interests.”

Underwritten by the biggest names in petrochemicals — British Petroleum, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell Chemical — and administered by the powerful API lobby, the Shanghai Health Study purported to examine how benzene exposure affects workers’ health. It consisted of three inquiries: The first investigated the link between benzene and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma as well as acute myeloid leukemia, or AML; the second, progression of diseases caused by the chemical; and the third, the exposure level at which such biological markers as lower blood cell counts indicate benzene's toxicity.

But the study’s outcome seemed to some like a foregone conclusion. Documents suggest oil companies set out to counter U.S. government research tying benzene to more types of cancer and at lower exposure levels than previously known. They show how company executives and scientists plotted objectives and “expected” results before the study began, banking on conclusions that would play down health hazards.

“This is just appalling,” said Carl Cranor, a philosophy professor at University of California, Riverside, who has read some of the Shanghai documents. “This does not sound like a scientific inquiry where you’re not sure what the outcome will be.”

Infante, the former OSHA official, who now testifies for plaintiffs in benzene litigation, put it more bluntly: “It’s called potential bias.”

Study’s authors: No bias

Industry representatives and the scientists they paid to do the Shanghai work say such criticism is unwarranted. Some oil executives, they say, may have been seeking an alternative to government research; others may have wanted to better understand benzene’s connection to disease. Whatever the impetus, they argue, scientific integrity was not compromised.

“There could have been the best intentions or the worst intentions,” said Harvey Checkoway, an epidemiology professor at University of California, San Diego, who served on a scientific review panel created by the petrochemical companies to review the study. “We set that aside for the research.”

Richard Irons, one of the study’s two principal investigators and now head of a consulting firm that does research for the petrochemical industry, said that “if you’re ignorant, it’s a logical conclusion” to view the work as biased. “But it’s an accusation not founded in fact.” Irons acknowledged that he has never testified for a plaintiff in a benzene exposure case. The API has financed his work on benzene since the early 1990s, documents show. Irons said he’s no longer receiving money from the institute but has gotten $100,000 for a small benzene project from the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s main lobby group.

Defenders of the Shanghai study stress the independence of its design. Scientists, they say, have operated under the guidance of not just the scientific review panel, but of two Chinese government ministries and two university boards, all ensuring a proper inquiry. Many of the results — positive and negative, they say — have been published in peer-reviewed journals.

“The results don’t support the presumption of bias,” Irons said, explaining that, so far, the research has confirmed benzene’s association with AML as well as myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS, a cancer of the bone marrow.

The study’s co-principal investigator, Otto Wong, who directed the work on AML and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, said, “I was interested in doing a cutting-edge study and I was confident I had control over our [portion]. The rest is really not a concern.” Wong acknowledged that he has never testified for a plaintiff in a benzene exposure case. His ties to the oil industry date to the 1970s. Now retired, Wong said he has “no contact with the API people at all.”

Representatives of BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips all declined to comment for this article, referring questions to the API, which did not respond to repeated interview requests. In a one-paragraph statement, Shell said the company’s financial “support for the study reflects our ongoing commitment to health, safety, and product stewardship,” stressing that “the study was wholly independent of Shell.”

ExxonMobil, whose scientists participated in the Shanghai study, said in a written statement that it “supports scientific research through funding and technical support,” painting its involvement in this project — as well as a 2012 ExxonMobil-sponsored study of benzene-exposed workers showing adverse health effects at levels below legal occupational limits — as part of a longstanding corporate commitment to better understanding the chemical. The 2012 results in particular prompted ExxonMobil to “voluntarily reduce allowable benzene exposure limits to one-half of OSHA legal limits” at its workplaces, it said — or 0.5 ppm for an eight-hour shift.

By contrast, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommends that workers limit their benzene exposure to an average of 0.1 ppm during a shift.

“Our conservative approach to setting workplace benzene exposure limits is influenced by the most up-to-date scientific evidence, which includes the 2012 study,” ExxonMobil said, noting that its short-term limit is five times lower than OSHA’s.

As the Shanghai findings seep into the scientific literature and, ultimately, the courts, the petrochemical industry generally admits that benzene causes AML and MDS at higher doses. But other blood and bone marrow cancers continue to kill — at lower and lower exposures to the chemical.

Michael Boley in April, 1994. Courtesy of the Boley family

On February 27, 2012, Michael Boley, 68, died of a disease Shanghai researchers say can’t be tied to benzene: chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, a form of MDS, combined with another bone-marrow condition known as “myeloproliferative disease.”

Strong and industrious, with a knack for avoiding even the flu, Boley spent 23 years at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant in St. Marys, Ohio, site of a seminal benzene study by NIOSH in the 1970s. The research quantified for the first time the leukemia risk for workers exposed to the chemical in the plant’s Pliofilm unit, prompting OSHA to work on the benzene standard that took effect in 1987.

Michael Boley worked at a Goodyear plant in St. Mary's, Ohio, for 23 years. His 15th anniversary with the company appeared in Goodyear's newsletter. Courtesy of the Boley family

Boley didn’t make the benzene-soaked rubber film for which the unit was named; rather, he was a plant electrician, supervisor and engineer who worked there for an hour or two daily. Still, he knew benzene was in the air: While in the unit he noticed “Authorized Personnel Only” signs for Pliofilm workers who, he testified in a deposition, “were monitored on a regular basis.” At times, he complained about the unit’s “sweeter-than-gasoline” smell. Once, Boley asked a supervisor if he could have the same blood test the company administered to Pliofilm workers.

“His comment was, no, we wouldn’t require monitoring,” Boley testified. “Our levels would be safe.”

Four decades later, after enduring the fatigue, feebleness and shortness of breath accompanying a diagnosis of chronic monomyelocytic leukemia, or CMML, Boley sued Goodyear and its benzene suppliers, including ExxonMobil. “He wanted them to know what had happened to him,” said his widow, Cheryl. But the suit went nowhere: In 2011, Boley settled the litigation in a confidential mediation. His still-pending workers’ compensation claim has seen little traction.

“He couldn’t prove it,” Cheryl said, alluding to the companies’ claims that benzene couldn’t have caused her husband’s illness. Those claims were supported by Irons and other scientists affiliated with the Shanghai study, who reported in a journal article last year that “benzene exposure does not appear to be a significant predictor of CMML.”

Mounting evidence against benzene:

1928

First case

The first case of benzene-induced leukemia is reported.

1948

Only safe concentration is zero

The American Petroleum Institute concludes that “the only absolutely safe concentration for benzene is zero.”

1977

Goodyear study

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health launches a study of two Goodyear plants in Ohio where workers are exposed to benzene at high levels — 10 parts per million to 100 ppm. Responding to the study, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issues an emergency temporary standard for benzene of 1 ppm, down from 10 ppm.

1978

Final standard

OSHA issues its final benzene standard of 1 ppm, sparking a legal challenge from API that lasts nearly a decade and goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

1981

Ohio results

NIOSH researchers examining the two Ohio plants establish that the exposures increased five-fold the workers’ risk of developing leukemia.

1990

Benzene Task Force

The API’s Benzene Task Force kicks off an industry campaign to counter the Ohio study. The oil lobby acknowledges that “high doses of benzene can cause some forms of cancer,” but not necessarily “low concentrations.”

1994

National Cancer Institute study

A National Cancer Institute study of benzene-exposed workers in Shanghai, China, appears on the petrochemical industry’s radar.

1997

National Cancer Institute study

The first NCI paper reports significantly elevated risks of leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome and non-Hodgkins lymphoma at levels of benzene exposure around the OSHA limit of 1 ppm.

2000

A new Shanghai study

The Benzene Task Force outlines the strategy for the industry’s own Shanghai study as well as other benzene research efforts “designed to protect member company interests…” Documents paint the research as a counterweight to the NCI study.

2001

"Benefits" to bottom lines

BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Shell Chemical sign an agreement with the task force and API launching what will become the Benzene Health Research Consortium to fund what’s expected to be a five-year study costing approximately $20 million.

2003

Project unveiled

The Shanghai study is publicly unveiled at China’s Fudan University, home to the project’s multi-million-dollar, state-of-the-art laboratory.

2004

No safe exposure

The NCI releases its second major study of benzene-exposed Chinese workers. It shows that workers who inhaled less than 1 ppm of benzene had fewer white blood cells than unexposed workers, strongly suggesting there is no safe exposure threshold for the chemical.

2005

Shanghai costs soar

Shanghai project expenses soar to more than $26 million.

2006

Benzene regulations launched

The EPA launches what some experts consider its most substantive effort to regulate benzene in years — a rule requiring the reformulation of fuel to reduce benzene content. “Benzene is the most significant contributor to cancer risk from all outdoor air toxics,” EPA officials state.

2007

"Risk management"

An API memo details the lobby group’s benzene “risk management” program, which aims to “develop scientific data . . . for use in science advocacy, risk management, litigation support.” The memo states that benzene is “of particular concern to the industry” because “tighter regulation . . . could impose substantial costs.”

2009

Shangai project ends

The Shanghai project officially ends, though articles about the research will continue to appear in scientific journals and be used by industry to defend lawsuits by U.S. workers exposed to benzene.

2014

Continued impact

As of October, 30 papers have been published with consortium funds; in general, the Shanghai study has found that only certain subtypes of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) show statistically significant associations with the chemical. It also has shown “a possible association” between benzene and a subtype of non-Hodgkins lymphoma — a controversial finding that some industry scientists dispute.

Only safe level ‘is zero’

The petrochemical industry has known about benzene’s dangers since the turn of the last century. As far back as 1948, the API’s toxicological profile of the chemical discussed “reasonably well documented instances of the development of leukemia as a result of chronic benzene exposure,” cautioning that “the only absolutely safe concentration … is zero.”

Later, as scientific evidence of benzene’s hazards accumulated and regulatory limits on workplace and environmental levels tightened, the industry took a different stance. By 1990, the API and member companies such as BP, Chevron, Mobil and Shell had launched a research program meant to keep further restrictions at bay — or, minutes from an API meeting in 1992 state, research “that will be most useful in improving risk assessment and influencing regulation.”

Within years, the catalyst for the Shanghai Health Study appeared. In 1995, company representatives turned their attention to work by the National Cancer Institute, which was repeating the Pliofilm study in China to examine the effects on workers exposed to benzene at levels below the OSHA limit. Exxon, which had yet to merge with Mobil, even sent company scientists on a fact-finding visit to interview government researchers.

“We are monitoring the NCI studies,” an Exxon memo explained, “because of their potential impact concerning the health risks at low benzene exposures.”

In 1997, the NCI published a landmark study on benzene-exposed workers in Shanghai. The results reinforced past research showing the chemical causes leukemia, said Richard Hayes, a former NCI epidemiologist and the study’s lead author, but “what moved the science forward” were two findings: That workers with chronic benzene exposures had an increased risk of developing MDS and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — i.e., diseases other than leukemia — and that such effects could be triggered by doses of the chemical as low as the OSHA limit.

In 2004, the NCI released the results of a second study. It found that Chinese shoe makers inhaling benzene in amounts below the OSHA limit had fewer white blood cells than unexposed workers, suggesting the chemical has no safe threshold.

“In general,” Hayes said, “we found benzene was a larger problem than we originally thought.”

The industry quickly attacked the NCI’s work. Documents show that the API commissioned a $25,000 “critical review” of the government research from California epidemiologist Wong. In a 10-page paper, Wong challenged the NCI study from every conceivable angle. “The findings,” he wrote, “are unreliable.”

Wong insists today that his corporate funding had no influence on this conclusion. “My critique of the NCI study was comprehensive and specific,” he said. “I was responsible for every comment.”

For the industry, the review had the desired effect: It cast enough doubt on the NCI’s first study to convince the EPA, in 2000, not to rely on the research for estimating benzene’s carcinogenic effects. “We thought there were methodological issues that might be questionable,” said Bob Sonawane, of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, who has overseen agency assessments of benzene’s health risks. The agency did use the NCI work to assess non-cancer effects in 2002, Sonawane said.

By then, industry representatives were already thinking beyond conventional critiques. Wong remembers reaching out to Chinese scientists about a possible benzene study before broaching it to industry contacts. “I knew quite a few people at API and member companies,” he said. “We just started a conversation.” The campaign to finance an alternative study in China was kicked off in earnest in the late 1990s, when the API approached Irons, then a pathology professor at University of Colorado, Boulder. Irons said API officials asked him to visit Shanghai in 1999 and consider doing a study similar to the NCI’s, which examined workers’ diseases and estimated their benzene exposures after the fact and “had some provocative findings.”

Irons went to China. Upon his return, he urged the API to instead conduct what he calls “a real-time clinical study,” in which researchers examine workers’ diseases as they occur. Within a year, he, Wong and ExxonMobil scientists had drafted proposals for the Shanghai study, which the API circulated among its members to drum up financing.

API representatives went from company to company, giving what amounted to a sales pitch for the Shanghai study. They laid out just what executives might anticipate in return.

A 2001 document listed the following “expected” results:

Provide strong scientific support for a lack of a risk of leukemia … at current ambient benzene concentrations to the general population.

Establish … current occupational exposure limits do not create a significant risk.

Refute the allegation that Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma can be induced by benzene exposure.

Other documents show that the industry was counting on such findings to combat stringent regulation and stave off “tremendous” costs that would come from having to cut benzene emissions. “Significant issues of concern” identified in a 2001 PowerPoint include potential requirements to reformulate gasoline and “control emissions from stationary sources.”

Liability also was a worry. Documents warned of “litigation costs due to perceptions about the risks of even very low exposures to benzene” and lawsuits “alleging induction of various forms of leukemia and other hematopoietic diseases,” including more commonly diagnosed lymphomas.

For some in the industry, the bait proved enticing.

“Given the magnitude of [health, safety and environment] issues surrounding benzene as well as the litigation claims we continue to see, I believe it would be worthwhile to participate,” a Shell executive wrote in an email in 2000, a year before the company and its four counterparts formed the Shanghai study’s official sponsor: the Benzene Health Research Consortium.

Later, as consortium members tried to plug an ever-increasing budget gap — boosting the research’s price tag from $19 million in 2001 to more than $35 million in 2008 — their argument turned repeatedly to economics. One 2003 script for a CEO-level phone call states, “This study will positively impact our global business concerns.”

Critics say such documents expose the Shanghai study for what it is: An industry attempt to buy scientific evidence. “It’s all about influencing science to get what industry wants,” said Myron Mehlman, formerly chief toxicologist at Mobil, who became a whistleblower in 1989 after the company fired him for complaining about benzene levels in its gasoline. He sued Mobil, winning a $7 million judgment.

Mehlman remembers hearing about the Shanghai study in 2005 and immediately firing off letters to 45 executives at sponsoring companies. “I knew the scientists would do whatever it takes and whatever the industry needs done,” he said. In response, he said, he got a consortium form letter that “just re-confirmed how the study is being done for a single purpose — to get desirable outcomes.”

Industry-funded researchers bristle at the science-for-sale accusations.

“I didn’t see refuting anything as my charge,” said Irons, the study’s co-principal investigator, “and I wouldn’t have responded favorably to that.”

In depositions, however, Irons conceded that oil companies had a vested interest in the project.

“The oil companies … expected … it would be used for regulation, litigation, and for understanding the health effects of benzene,” he testified in 2010, adding that he didn’t believe a “funding source or the amount of money necessarily impacts on the [study’s] objectivity.”

Wong sounds a similar note. “We didn’t know what the results were before the study began,” he said, claiming he wasn’t privy to “any discussion” among the sponsoring companies. He considers it “just unthinkable” that critics would suggest “all those outside scientists, together with us, tried to create some results.”

Noting that the study relied on actual cases from 29 Shanghai hospitals, Wong explained, “It’s very difficult to argue that we have influenced our data one way or another.”

Members of the Shanghai study’s scientific review panel echo this sentiment. They saw no signs of overt bias in the design, they say, no way to yield preconceived results. “That wasn’t my experience,” said John Cherrie, a former panelist now heading occupational health research at a British nonprofit that has worked for the petrochemical industry. “The studies were designed to investigate the true situation without any obvious bias.”

Some would-be funders weren’t so sure, documents show.

In 2002, consortium members landed a meeting with seven scientists from Dow Chemical Company to pitch the Shanghai study. The meeting came after the scientists had voiced what one described as “specific technical concerns” about its design. Dow eventually opted not to contribute.

In a deposition two years later, Dow’s head of epidemiology, James Collins, testified that the company feared the study could generate inaccurate risk estimates and thus “be biased.”

‘Independent’ review panels

Documents suggest the Shanghai study’s sponsors were keenly aware of such perceptions. To deflect criticism, they set up “independent” review panels consisting of 10 ethicists and scientists, reputable leaders in fields like epidemiology, clinical medicine and bio-statistics. By 2001, panelists were meeting investigators and reviewing protocols — “essentially quality control,” said Jerry Rice, who chaired the scientific panel. Advisory in nature, the boards have remained involved in nearly every aspect of research.

Industry representatives viewed the boards as essential for lending credibility to the study. “There are going to be people out there who will want to misinterpret and criticize the study,” one argued in a 2003 email. “It is important that ‘the integrity’ … be maintained” with the panels.

Panelists insist the boards weren’t simply for show. They say industry representatives routinely encouraged them to offer criticisms and recommendations, and they obliged. Documents show investigators incorporated so many panel suggestions that research costs soared $3 million in one year alone.

“I never felt there was any desire to muzzle or tone down criticism,” said Rice, formerly with the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, who oversaw the agency’s evaluations of chemicals for carcinogenic risks from 1996 to 2002. At IARC, Rice had come to know oil industry executives, who recruited him for the panel. “If there had been any of that, we’d have all quit.”

Still, company executives maintained tight control over the study. Documents indicate the consortium operated like a corporation, replete with committees governing research, finances and communications. Once a year, it hosted a meeting of 50 or so participants, flying American and Chinese scientists as well as review panelists to a two-day retreat to discuss the work as executives observed. Twice a year, consortium members combed through detailed progress reports filed by investigators.

The consortium also required industry review of draft manuscripts until 2005, when Irons penned his first. In it, Irons announced preliminary results linking a previously unrecognized form of myelodysplastic syndrome -- MDS -- to benzene exposure. The draft set off debate within ExxonMobil and Shell, both of which alerted the EPA — as the law required — to what was vaguely described in a consortium email as “health findings reported in a draft publication.”

At the time, Irons expressed reservations over the manuscript-review requirement.

Consortium members dropped it but kept the review boards. For years, panelists kept circulating “ready-for-submission manuscripts” for “feedback,” documents show.

Consortium members have worked especially hard on controlling their message. Before the Shanghai study began, the communications committee was crafting its marketing strategy. Documents reveal reams of “if asked” statements and media-relations plans, listing objectives such as “counter activists’ negativity.” Among the committee’s tasks, according to a 2001 email:

perception needs to be that this is not being done to protect against litigation

use a consulting attorney to address these issues of perceived motivation

Consortium sales pitches to prospective contributors, expressed in recruitment briefs, “call sheets” and “adaptable” slideshows, epitomize this corporate spin. Publicly, members have claimed altruistic motives for backing the Shanghai study. During a presentation in 2002 at PetroChina, a Chinese oil firm targeted for sponsorship, one Shell scientist proclaimed, according to a company email, “We believe it is important to understand the hazards of the products we make and sell, and we believe it is the right thing to do!”

Privately, consortium members betrayed less charitable motives. A draft of a 2002 recruitment brief reminded potential sponsors that “there is continued concern with the potential health effects of benzene as it relates to worker exposure … and personal injury claims.”

In response, a Shell executive urged colleagues to “delet[e] the reference to legal liabilities” and emphasized that “the only reason we are doing this is in support of protecting workers.”

Widows like Carolyn Wright have trouble processing such statements. Her husband, Eric, was a consummate company man whose closets brimmed with Shell awards, buckles, hats and magnets. Wright spent 34 years, from 1976 to 2010, working on offshore vessels for five oil companies — 18 at Shell. A trained “gun shooter,” he repaired sonar equipment, breaking down air guns. He soaked parts in benzene-laced solvents in a diesel-engine room, breathing in the chemical at exposures estimated to be two to five times greater than the legal limit.

Eric Wright guiding a seismic streamer cable in 1976, his first of 34 years working on offshore rigs. Courtesy of the Wright family

Wright died, at 63, of leukemia in 2010, exactly five months after receiving an MDS diagnosis. Most of that time he remained hospitalized, beset by body sores, eye infections and a failing gall bladder. Within weeks, he couldn’t feed or bathe himself; eventually, he couldn’t hold up his head. Carolyn remembers leaving her husband’s bedside twice — first, to get clothes and then to visit a funeral home.

“They took away my best friend,” she said, referring to Shell and eight other petrochemical companies she and her husband sued 14 days before his death. “They were responsible because they made the benzene.” She settled the case for an undisclosed amount, most of which went toward her husband’s outstanding medical bills and legal fees. Shell admitted no liability.

“I’d rather have my husband,” Carolyn said. “There is not another one like him.”

Seeding the literature

The petrochemical industry’s research strategy had another key component: publication. Oil and chemical companies have long seeded the scientific literature, paying consultants to publish in peer-reviewed journals. They often use the published articles to advance their positions in regulatory and legal arenas. Infante, the former OSHA official, considers benzene “a good example of how the general scientific literature is being polluted by people working for industry.”

A 2002 Shell summary of the Shanghai project defined a “Key Measure/Indicator of Success” as a “Cost effective study reported in public literature … [that would] support … advocacy.”

By the time the research consortium disbanded in 2009, Irons and his colleagues had released results in 20 journal articles as well as at an “international benzene symposium,” in Germany. Industry-funded scientists have added to the literature since; according to Irons, the consortium’s dollars have yielded a total of 30 papers.

Such publications can play a critical role in benzene litigation. The Shanghai study has helped companies deny liability by casting doubt on causation, the central issue in a toxic-tort lawsuit. One tactic the industry has employed — with aid from the study — is to separate cancers into subsets, making it harder to prove a specific link between benzene and the disease. David Eastmond, a toxicology professor at University of California, Riverside, said that the petrochemical industry “gets sued on a fairly regular basis” over “a wide range of diseases.”

“If [it] could narrow down which subtypes are caused by benzene,” he explained, “the industry could eliminate a number of lawsuits.”

Industry-funded Shanghai researchers found that only certain subtypes of MDS and AML are significantly linked to benzene.

Now, in claims involving auto mechanics, gas station attendants and printers, plaintiff’s lawyers are seeing this claim play out in court. There is the case, for example, of a contract worker for southeast Texas refineries and chemical plants who washed his tools in benzene and later developed MDS. Citing a 2009 article by Irons, defense lawyers argued that the worker didn’t have the subtype of MDS associated with benzene exposure. The worker’s family resolved the case under terms that remain confidential.

In another case, a refinery technician who used benzene in laboratory experiments developed the very MDS subtype the 2009 article tied to the chemical. In testimony, however, defense experts used the Shanghai research not to affirm this link, but rather to debate whether his MDS was, in fact, properly diagnosed. The case settled in 2010 as part of a confidential agreement.

"You don’t want to find out you have cancer at that age because of somebody else’s wrongdoing."- Brian Milward

Some find such defenses scientifically disingenuous. Hayes, the former NCI scientist, who is now head of epidemiology at New York University’s medical school, explained that scientists cannot eliminate a disease subtype simply because a study doesn’t show an association with benzene exposure. “It doesn’t mean there isn’t any effect,” he said. “The end result is to sow the seeds of doubt.”

Wong said that all he and his fellow researchers can do is report their findings — positive and negative. “I’m sure some people use the results in their own way,” he said, referring to defense lawyers. “I can’t really speak to that.”

Acknowledging that “no study can prove a negative,” Irons defends the Shanghai research as “the best available evidence” benzene causes only certain disease subtypes. That “doesn’t reduce the fact that benzene is associated with MDS,” he said — or, for that matter, AML. And ultimately, some say, these findings aren’t as conclusive as oil executives may have wanted.

“In terms of something that would once and forever cause the petroleum industry’s legal liability problems to go away,” said review panelist Rice, “it didn’t do that.”

In fact, some outcomes have hurt defendants in court. In 2004, after 30 years fixing refrigerators at ice-skating rinks and meat-packing plants — receiving a daily dose of petroleum-based products — Brian Milward developed a rare condition known as acute promyelocytic leukemia, or APL. At the time, he was 47 years old.

“You don’t want to find out you have cancer at that age because of somebody else’s wrongdoing,” Milward said, explaining he had no idea the solvents and paints he used to clean and seal pipes contained benzene until after he was diagnosed.

Brian Milward with his granddaughter while Milward was receiving chemotheropy treatment. Courtesy of Brian Milward]

In 2007, he filed suit against Rustoleum Paints and 20 other manufacturers, whose experts argued no epidemiological studies show a link between benzene and APL. Experts hired by Milward countered that evidence linking benzene to AML essentially links it to all subtypes, including APL. The judge disagreed, ruling for the defendants. But the debate has stymied the case, fueling appeals on both sides, and sparking a brief signed by 27 preeminent scientists affirming benzene can cause any leukemia.

Meanwhile, the Shanghai study affirmed the very link Milward’s lawyers tried to draw. In a 2010 article confirming benzene’s tie to “an increased risk of AML,” Wong discussed the relationship by disease subtype. APL was the “most strongly related” to benzene exposure, he wrote.

While the ruling against Milward eventually was struck down, he has yet to appear before a jury. After settling with every defendant but Rustoleum, he has watched the company challenge the science again. This time, defense experts question whether his workplace exposures could have caused his cancer. A second appeal is pending.

Now in remission, Milward must grapple with cancer’s lasting effects. Nearly a decade of chemotherapy, along with diabetes and a rare bowel disorder, have left him battling what he calls “absolutely ridiculous” fatigue. Retired and on disability, he remembers returning to work twice. First, he resorted to napping to endure an eight-hour shift. When his boss assigned him to office duty, pushing paper and making calls, he still fell asleep at his desk.

“I can’t really do anything,” said Milward, 57 — at least, not what he loves: repairing race cars, working in his yard, playing with his grandchildren. “It just sucks when you get a cancer like this.”

‘He never complained’

To family and friends in Deweyville, Texas, a pine-shaded town along the Louisiana border, John Thompson was “John” — a life-long resident, church deacon and carpentry teacher who reinforced souls as much as structures. To Irons, the Shanghai study investigator who charged $600 per hour as an expert witness, he was “John H. Thompson” — deceased, one of three case referrals from a corporate-defense firm, all in lawsuits alleging cancers caused by benzene.

Thompson had built scaffolding for refineries and chemical plants in the 1960s and early '70s. At the end of most workdays he'd be covered in a thick adhesive known as mastic and would use pure benzene to get it off his hands, clothes and tools. In 2010, three months after Thompson’s death, Irons flew to Houston from China to testify in the benzene litigation, armed with what he has called “the largest single study of AML in history” —the Shanghai study. In a deposition, the scientist touted the research, saying it “inform[ed] with respect to disease specificity to a much greater degree than other previous epidemiological studies.”

“Assumptions and presumptions,” Irons testified, “have to be modified and re-assessed.”

The comment proved prescient in Thompson’s case.

In 2006, the former contract worker was mowing his lawn when he mentioned feeling fatigued. A pillar of a man, Thompson, then 66, had gotten two heart stents without uttering a gripe. “He never complained,” said Chase Bowers, his nephew. Not when he broke both arms on an oil rig, or lost his left eye in a shop accident. Bowers, who, as a teenager, was raised by Thompson and his wife, Carol, remembers watching a tree branch rip open his uncle’s ear. One emergency-room visit and Thompson returned to work.

“That’s the kind of guy he was,” Bowers said.

Within days of the lawn-mowing episode, Thompson learned he had acquired AML — specifically, a subtype of AML known as “inversion 16.”

"If oil companies are willing to spend $36 million to fund research, how much are they afraid of losing?"- Chase Bowers, nephew to John Thompson

In the contentious world of toxic-tort litigation, Thompson’s case seems like a classic: The only leukemia the petrochemical industry has admitted benzene can cause is AML — especially at higher doses. According to the Shell benzene-litigation defense guide, the industry might have classified Thompson’s case as “high risk”: He not only suffered from AML, but, as the guide states, “pure benzene is involved,” and his “exposure took place prior to OSHA involvement.” Experts hired by the family estimated Thompson’s cumulative benzene exposures were five times greater than the legal limit.

At trial, however, the case turned out to be anything but a slam dunk. Citing the Shanghai study, Irons worked to debunk a link between benzene and the type of AML afflicting Thompson. The Shanghai research has shown approximately two of the 20 AML subtypes are significantly associated with the chemical, he testified — neither of them “inversion 16.”

“We found many cases of inversion 16,” Irons said in court. “We did not find an association between benzene exposure and inversion 16.” Other scientists disagree, arguing that if benzene causes one subtype of AML, it likely causes all of them.

Keith Hyde, a Beaumont, Texas, lawyer who represents plaintiffs in toxic-tort cases, including the Thompsons, remembers Irons highlighting one Shanghai article after another at trial, raising doubt. “You have doubt here and there through all these industry studies,” Hyde said. “Let’s just say they do their job.”

After two weeks of testimony, the Thompson case ended in mistrial. The suit ultimately was resolved under terms that remain confidential.

In April, Carol, Thompson’s widow, died of liver cancer. In the years after the benzene trial, she rarely mentioned the ordeal — too many painful memories. She had to relive her husband’s death daily in court, watching videos and hearing testimony on his decline. “It was devastating for my aunt,” Bowers said. In his view, she never understood the extent to which oil and chemical companies hid benzene’s hazards and tried to spin the science.

“There’s obvious vested interest here,” Bowers said of the Shanghai study. “If oil companies are willing to spend $36 million to fund research, how much are they afraid of losing?”

Ashley Schwartz contributed to this story.