SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
exxonknew
Disrupting Punchbowl News Event, Climate Advocates Say Exxon 'Should Have No Place at the DNC'
"Instead of fossil fuel profits, Democrats must prioritize making the world a healthier, more equitable place," said DNC member RL Miller, who disrupted the event declaring "Exxon lied and people died."
Aug 21, 2024
Climate campaigners on Wednesday called out and even disrupted a Punchbowl News event on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago because it was sponsored by fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil.
"Companies like Exxon should have no place at the DNC," said Sunrise Movement communications director Stevie O'Hanlon in a statement. "Exxon has spent decades misleading the public about the climate crisis and buying off politicians. If the Democratic Party wants to be taken seriously by our generation on climate change, they need to walk the talk."
Oil Change U.S. political director Collin Rees pointed out that "no major oil and gas company is pledging to do the bare minimum to prevent climate chaos."
"Fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil are moving in the opposite direction of the Democratic Party, whose platform is clear on the need to end public money for oil and gas production," he continued. "ExxonMobil continues to invest billions in new oil and gas, all while spreading misinformation and lobbying against meaningful climate policies. Exxon should have no platform at the DNC."
Rees joined DNC member RL Miller of California and Climate Defiance in disrupting the Wednesday event. Video shows that as Miller was escorted out by men who appeared to be security, she explained that "I am here because Exxon lied and people died."
"We call on party leaders and attendees to end the involvement of fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil in the political process."
Congressional, journalistic, and scholarly research has exposed how ExxonMobil knew decades ago that fossil fuels would drive climate chaos but continued to cash in on their products anyway while spreading disinformation. The company is included in various climate liability lawsuits and some Democrats on Capitol Hill have recently demanded a federal probe.
Ahead of the Wednesday action, Miller, the political director of Climate Hawks Vote, highlighted the close ties between the fossil fuel industry and the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump—who earlier this year told a room of Big Oil executives that he would roll back the Biden-Harris administration's climate policies if they invested just $1 billion into getting him elected.
"ExxonMobil and Donald Trump have already committed to each other—so why is the company sneaking around the DNC?" she asked. "We call on party leaders and attendees to end the involvement of fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil in the political process."
Miller specifically directed pressure at the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris—who has broad support from the climate movement—and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has also been welcomed by green groups, despite his record on the Line 3 pipeline and Indigenous-led opposition to it.
"Instead, our government must deliver clean, affordable energy that is tailored to our communities, supports workers to transition to new jobs, and helps regions that have been deliberately sacrificed to toxic pollution and climate chaos," she said. "Instead of fossil fuel profits, Democrats must prioritize making the world a healthier, more equitable place and electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable."
The Punchbowl event featured a "pop-up conversation" with Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) and Vijay Swarup, ExxonMobil's senior director climate strategy and technology. The daylong event also had an appearance by Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and other sponsors included Duke Energy.
In response to the news outlet sharing a photo from the event on social media, Miller said: "Yeah. That's what I disrupted and I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
"The DNC is devoted to solving the climate crisis, not propping up DINOs like Lizzie Fletcher," she added, using the shorthand for "Democrat in name only."
Climate Defiance blasted Fletcher—first elected in 2018—in a series of posts, highlighting that she has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the fossil fuel industry during her career.
"Lizzie co-chairs the Natural Gas Caucus, and, since that isn't enough, also belongs to the Oil and Gas Caucus as well. She literally cannot get enough of her fossil fuels," Climate Defiance said.
"Lizzie's voting record is garbo. Utter garbo," the group continued. "She voted AGAINST the bill cracking down on Big Oil's price gouging. She voted AGAINST a bill requiring companies to merely disclose their climate risk. She voted AGAINST the bill protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."
Kate Aronoff, a climate reporter at The New Republic, took aim at Punchbowl—which has previously faced criticism for allowing fossil fuel interests to buy advertising in its newsletter—with a sarcastic response to the social media post.
The event came just two days after the Democratic Party platform was finalized. Lukas Ross, deputy climate and energy director at Friends of the Earth Action, pointed out Wednesday that "the DNC platform rightly calls for the repeal of $110 billion in fossil fuel subsidies that have lined Big Oil's pockets for decades."
"Dinosaurs like ExxonMobil are scared of losing their precious tax loopholes under a Harris administration," he said, nodding to revelations from a Greenpeace reporter posing as a corporate recruiter while speaking with an Exxon leader in 2021. "Any fossil fuel company looking to peddle influence in Chicago should be shown the door."
Keep ReadingShow Less
President Harris Is the Perfect Person to Prosecute the Case Against Big Oil
From a new perch in the Oval Office, Harris could throw the full weight of the White House behind holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for its climate lies.
Jul 22, 2024
Kamala Harris enters into the presidential race with a strong record on climate. As U.S. President Joe Biden’s vice president, she helped preside over the largest climate legislation in history, acted as the country’s highest ranking official at the United Nations climate talks, and toured the country promoting clean energy and speaking out about the need to protect environmental justice. As a senator and presidential candidate, Harris said she’d repeal the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal, opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline, and teamed up with New York Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez on a “climate equity” bill.
But perhaps the most exciting thing that Harris brings to the climate fight is this: She’s the perfect person to prosecute the case against Big Oil.
As we now know, the fossil fuel industry knew conclusively by the 1970s that the continued use of their product would cause catastrophic climate damages. Just last week, journalists uncovered a 1977 article from Marathon Oil that predicted “mass starvation” due to climate disruptions. But instead of warning the public, the industry went on to spread disinformation about the crisis and lobby against climate action (during the Trump Administration, Marathon was at the forefront of an industry attempt to gut automobile emissions standards).
With nearly all Americans now feeling the impacts of the climate crisis, the push to make polluters pay for the damage they’ve done has never been stronger.
It was the crime of the century—and one that we’ve just begun to prosecute. Right now, 10 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Big Oil. A couple dozen cities, counties, and tribal governments have joined them. But the federal government has been notably absent. The Department of Justice failed to take up the case (despite the repeated requests by leading members of Congress), and there’s a prevailing sense that Attorney General Merrick Garland has little interest in pursuing the matter.
All that could change under President Harris. A lifetime ago, when Harris ran in the 2019 Democratic primary for president, CNN asked her at a climate town hall if she’d support a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for lying about the climate crisis. “I have sued ExxonMobil,” she said to applause. As it turned out, that wasn’t quite right. As California’s attorney general, Harris had supported a multistate investigation into what Exxon knew about the climate crisis, but her office never formally filed suit.
Harris had pursued other major polluters, however. In 2016, she played a key role in securing a $15 billion payout from VW over their emissions cheating scandal. As AG, she also went after ConocoPhillips (the company behind the Willow Project in Alaska) for air quality violations at their gas stations and prosecuted a pipeline company for a 2015 spill in Santa Barbara. Before that, as San Francisco district attorney, she set up the city’s first environmental justice division.
From a new perch in the Oval Office, Harris could throw the full weight of the White House behind the prosecution of Big Oil’s climate lies. That could include everything from further empowering the Federal Trade Commission to go after the industry’s price gouging to appointing a new attorney general (perhaps one that’s already suing Big Oil) to lead a new lawsuit on behalf of the Department of Justice.
Harris would certainly have the support of the American people. According to a February poll, 78% of voters agree that oil companies who misled the public about climate change should be held accountable. That includes 91% of Democrats and 85% of Black voters. A DOJ case also has strong support from Democratic elected officials. At the conclusion of their years’ long investigation into Big Oil’s climate deception, the main ask from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Budget Committee was for the DOJ to launch their own investigation. With nearly all Americans now feeling the impacts of the climate crisis, the push to make polluters pay for the damage they’ve done has never been stronger.
This Tuesday, leading Democrats will be hosting a press conference and rally on Capitol Hill to announce a new Make Polluters Pay Agenda that brings together their best proposals for how to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their price gouging, lies, and climate damages. With President Harris in the White House, that agenda could finally become a reality.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Prosecute the Climate Criminals
A new website and project calls for accountability.
Jul 22, 2024
Imagine a time, in the not-too-distant future, when an international tribunal convenes to ask the question: Who is responsible for climate disruption? Who knew about the dangers of burning oil, gas, and coal, with their atmosphere-altering properties, but did nothing about it? Or worse, which individuals worked to promote disinformation, block changes, and delay action?
We are all responsible for climate change, especially those of us who live in industrialized countries with a higher standard of living based on a century of low-cost, easy-to-extract fossil fuels. But not all contributions to climate disruption are equal: Some take the bus while others fly private jets. And some people have considerably more political power and wealth to influence the paths we have taken and, regrettably, not taken.
We now know that certain corporations, like ExxonMobil and Shell, hold oversized responsibility for running out humanity’s clock and limiting our present options. There are individuals, often presiding over powerful transnational corporations and institutions, with the clout of medium-sized nation-states. These are the “apex predators” in the climate inaction ecosystem. Future generations will know their names: They are the climate criminals.
We want the public to learn the names of these climate criminals and understand how they are largely to blame for the devastating climate impacts happening all around us.
These alleged climate criminals deploy their power to promote climate change denial while knowing the science documenting the harms of emitting billions of tons of carbon and methane into the atmosphere. When a scientific consensus emerged in the last two decades, the climate criminals sowed doubt to foster societal paralysis and inaction.
When the public began to awaken to the harms of greenhouse gas emissions, the climate criminals worked to capture our political system to thwart any efforts to regulate carbon pollution. They insidiously used their power to block less-polluting alternatives to oil, gas, and coal.
As each year has passed, the opportunities for averting the worst disruptions of climate change have diminished. The climate criminals use their power to run out the clock on climate change. They have brought us to the point of living through rising climate disruption with unprecedented rising temperatures, droughts, wildfires, floods, and rising ocean temperatures and sea levels.
Today, on Climate Emergency Day, we are releasing the names of the 2024 North American Climate Criminals: Individuals we have identified who are actively engaged in “crimes-in-progress.”
The 2024 Climate Criminals include leaders of energy companies, major financiers of fossil fuel projects, insurance companies, think tanks and foundations that fund climate change denial, and communications firms that spin disinformation and distraction.
A new project called the Climate Accountability Research Project (CARP) received over 300 nominations for climate criminals and prepared extensive dossiers on over 150. In selecting the 2024 Climate Criminals, we identified 40 individuals recently involved in jeopardizing our shared future. A committee of activists and researchers narrowed the list down to 24.
Most of the 2024 Climate Criminals, unlike their recent predecessors, do not deny the existence of human-created climate change. They leaped from outright denial to distracting delay in a nanosecond. Today’s climate criminals exercise their considerable clout to deflect responsibility, block meaningful action, and promote “greenwashed” solutions. They have staked their future on unrealistic, expensive, and unscalable technological fixes to distract us for a few more years while they squeeze riches from the fossil fuel stone.
The 2024 Climate Criminals have been personally enriched by their climate crimes. Their combined wealth is at least $29.8 billion, with an average of $1.7 billion. Three are billionaires: Kelcy Warren (worth $7.1 billion), Jamie Dimon ($2.3 billion), and Harold Hamm ($18.4 billion). Their combined annual compensation is $232 million, with an average of $11 million.
Even those at foundations, think tanks, and national lobbying associations are paid hefty salaries. Michelle Bloodworth, CEO of America’s Power, has been paid over $4 million since 2017 to lobby on behalf of the moribund coal industry. She hopes a Trump administration will declare coal plants as “critical infrastructure” and keep them spewing. Brian Hooks was paid over $5 million between 2020 and 2022 by one Koch-funded organization—and millions more through decades of work at the Koch Foundation and other Koch-funded climate-denying and action-delaying organizations.
Several 2024 Climate Criminals were involved in writing the environment and energy sections of the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership,” a public policy blueprint spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation that dismantles environmental protection and reduces investment in renewable energy while expanding Arctic drilling and Western coal mining. It would remove the U.S. from international climate change agreements.
In April 2024, four of our 2024 Climate Criminals attended a dinner at Mar-a-Lago of fossil fuel executives, organized by climate criminal Harold Hamm. Trump allegedly asked for $1 billion in campaign donations in exchange for rolling back U.S. President Joe Biden’s regulatory policies. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, and American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers were reportedly also at the dinner. Hamm also co-hosted another fundraising luncheon for Trump with climate criminal Kelcy Warren on May 22, 2024.
This Climate Criminals educational campaign aims to shift the national conversation about who is responsible for climate disruption. We want the public to learn the names of these climate criminals and understand how they are largely to blame for the devastating climate impacts happening all around us. During the next heatwave, name the climate criminals out loud. Next flood or wildfire smoke in your eyes? Damn those climate criminals.
We support nonviolent protests against the climate criminals when they show up to be recognized at a charity gala or speak at a conference. We urge people to take public action at www.climatecriminals.org with a petition urging the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute these climate criminals.
When we understand the role of Climate Criminals in narrowing our options as citizens and consumers, we won’t tolerate insults like those dished out by Exxon CEO Darren Woods. Woods recognizes that our societies are failing to meet climate change mitigation goals, but instead of taking responsibility for his company’s leading role in causing climate change, he blames consumers. “The dirty secret nobody talks about is how much all this is going to cost and who’s willing to pay for it,” Woods told Fortune in March 2024. “We have opportunities to make fuels with lower carbon in it, but people aren’t willing to spend the money to do that.”
The real dirty secret is that it’s Darren Woods and his fellow climate criminals who’ve been running out the clock, engaging in denial, and blocking the development of the green technologies that we need to preserve a livable planet. They are responsible, and they need to be held to account.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular