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
exxonmobil
Big Oil Fears the Evidence of Its Climate Lies
Fossil fuel companies are desperate to escape trial in climate deception lawsuits. The Supreme Court should not shield them from accountability.
Oct 02, 2026
No one knows how the US Supreme Court will rule in Suncor v. Boulder, the case that will kick off the court’s fall term next week and will likely decide whether the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, will be able to put oil giants ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy on trial for deceiving the public for decades about the climate harms of fossil fuels.
But one thing that can be said with certainty is that Big Oil and the fossil fuel industry are absolutely terrified of facing cases like Boulder’s at trial, where state and local governments will be able to present evidence of Big Oil’s decades-long climate deception to a jury. Big Oil’s own lawyers have admitted that the companies face “massive monetary liability” from the dozens of climate deception cases against them, and that stopping communities from having their day in court is a “big priority… for the entire industry.”
That’s because the evidence of Big Oil’s climate lies is overwhelming—and the discovery process in climate deception lawsuits could produce even more damaging proof that companies like Exxon have knowingly fueled climate chaos for decades while concealing the harm, undermining the science, and obstructing every effort to address the problem. As the Supreme Court prepares to hear Exxon’s pleas to escape trial in just one of the dozens of climate deception lawsuits, the Center for Climate Integrity has released a newly updated collection of 101 internal industry documents and other pieces of evidence that the fossil fuel industry is desperate to stop a jury of Americans from seeing.
All Boulder and other communities are asking Big Oil to do is to stop lying and pay for the harm their lies have caused. It speaks volumes about Big Oil companies that they’re going to such lengths to avoid telling the truth and paying to clean up the mess they’ve made.
Climate Fraud 101: Big Oil's Climate Deception Explained in 101 Documents, 1957-2026 shows how fossil fuel companies helped shape the emerging field of climate science beginning in the 1950s. By the late 1970s and early 80s, Exxon scientists were warning of “catastrophic” climate impacts if the world did not shift away from fossil fuels. Over the course of the 1980s, the oil giant and others came to understand that climate change posed two profound existential risks: one to “civilisation” itself, and the second to their business model, because the only way to “avoid the problem” was by “sharply curtailing the use of fossil fuels.”
Big Oil then chose their own interests over humanity’s and launched the most consequential corporate deception campaign in history to “emphasize the uncertainty” in climate science before measurable impacts became detectable and undeniable. By the 1990s, the oil and gas majors responded to increased public awareness of climate change by publicly contradicting what their own scientists had been telling them for decades, casting doubt on well-established climate science and obstructing efforts to mitigate the impacts of global warming. Then, once the problem became undeniable, Big Oil and the fossil fuel industry shifted to lie about the solutions—undermining the urgently needed transition to renewables while claiming they could make dirty fossil fuels more climate friendly through false solutions like natural gas and carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Throughout these decades, the impacts of the climate crisis became worse and worse for communities across the globe, with wildfires, floods, droughts, extreme heat, and other climate damages becoming more deadly and destructive as a result of the industry’s obstruction.
On October 5, Exxon and Suncor will beg the Supreme Court to shield them from having to face the evidence of their wrongdoing in a Colorado court. But the fossil fuel industry’s quest to escape accountability is much larger. They’re desperately lobbying Congress and state legislatures to give them outright immunity from climate lawsuits and place them above the law entirely. They’re attacking climate science and efforts to educate judges through a vast network of fossil-funded front groups. They’re enlisting the Trump administration to sue states that dare bring legal action against oil companies. And they’re flooding right-wing echo chambers with ridiculous fear mongering arguments that it's not our continued reliance on fossil fuels but climate deception lawsuits—which have not even gone to trial yet—that are blame for high gas prices and threats to our national security.
All Boulder and other communities are asking Big Oil to do is to stop lying and pay for the harm their lies have caused. It speaks volumes about Big Oil companies that they’re going to such lengths to avoid telling the truth and paying to clean up the mess they’ve made. Conservative and progressive legal scholars alike have explained why Exxon and Suncor’s arguments to escape Boulder’s lawsuit at this early stage should fail.
The Supreme Court should not shield these companies from having to face the evidence of their wrongdoing. We should all agree that we are still a nation of laws—of, by, and for the people—not a nation beholden to the interests of oil executives.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Mental Health Is Worker Health
It is clear from occupational health research that work does impact mental health, and this impact should compel politicians to explicitly legislate and develop regulations to protect workers' mental health.
Sep 29, 2026
Over the summer, the Fifth Circuit Court, in a case brought by ExxonMobil, ruled that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, had “exceeded its statutory authority” by citing Exxon for failing to record a work-related mental illness.
This case followed an incident in Baytown, Texas where an explosion and fire occurred during repairs on a hydro-desulfurization unit, injuring multiple workers. After the explosion, a technician volunteered to lead firefighters to several valves that needed to be shut off to prevent the fire from continuing. While receiving treatment after his first excursion to assist the firefighters, he courageously agreed to lead the first responders to another valve.
Following this incident, the technician experienced anxiety and was later diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by two professionals. Despite these diagnoses, Exxon did not accept the determination that his PTSD was work-related and requested that the technician see another provider, which the technician refused. The union that represented workers at the Baytown location reported the incident to OSHA, which then issued a penalty against Exxon for failing to record the technician’s PTSD as work related.
It is also important to acknowledge that there is not a clear distinction between physical injury or illness and mental illness.
After Exxon challenged the penalty, the Fifth Circuit Court canceled the penalty based on a narrow reading of OSHA’s authority under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to “prescribe regulations requiring employers to maintain accurate records of, and to make periodic reports on, work-related deaths, injuries and illnesses,” concluding that the “illnesses” referred to in the act do not include mental illnesses.
While others have questioned the soundness of the legal reasoning in the decision, it is clear from occupational health research that work does impact mental health, and that this impact on mental health has consequences for the life, well-being, and indeed physical health of workers. This impact should compel politicians to explicitly legislate and develop regulations to protect workers' mental health.
Recognizing the impact of work on mental health is nothing new. In an 1844 issue of the Lowell Offering—the publication created by Lowell Mill Girls in the early days of the industrial revolution in the United States—Harriet Farley speculated on how the nature of the toil in work at the Lowell Mills could have contributed to the recent suicides of two of her comrades:
In factory labor it is sometimes an advantage, but also sometimes the contrary, that the mind is thrown back upon itself—it is forced to depend upon its own resources, for a large proportion of the time of the operative. Excepting by sight, the females hold but little companionship with each other.
Specific work-related factors associated with adverse health consequences include long work hours, shift work, bullying, harassment, workplace violence, traumatic events, low control over work, and job insecurity. These factors stem from the work environment and are not just a concern because of their impact on workers' mental health, although this connection is clear. These sources of stress in the work environment can also increase the risk of physical health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders (such as carpal tunnel syndrome and low back pain), and acute traumatic injuries. The burden of exposure to these workplace factors is not borne equally by all workers. Due to occupational segregation, exposure to these workplace stressors is often higher among Black and Hispanic workers, thereby contributing to health disparities.
A large proportion of workplace fatalities are also tied to mental health. In 2024, in the US, there were reported 410 workplace drug overdoses and 263 workplace suicides. The role of the workplace in these causes of death, both of which are among the leading causes of death in the United States, even when they occur outside of the workplace, has become clear. One recent study estimated that work-related factors, including chemical exposures, lack of social support, and long work hours, contribute to 10-13% of suicides. Similarly, research has revealed that the mental health impacts of factors like workplace stress and job insecurity contribute to the risk of drug overdoses. The role of the workplace in this risk for drug overdoses is seen in the fact that the loss of manufacturing jobs at the county level is associated with increases in drug overdose mortality.
It is also important to acknowledge that there is not a clear distinction between physical injury or illness and mental illness, as the Fifth Circuit Court Ruling suggests. Indeed, the very event that prompted the ruling was both a physical hazard, as shown by the resulting injuries, and a mental health hazard, as shown by the technician’s PTSD. Injuries at work have negative consequences for mental health. Research suggests that both physical and psychosocial hazards at work affect the risk of musculoskeletal disorders.
A variety of methods exist to protect workers’ mental health. In Australia, workplaces are required to minimize psychological hazards “so far as is reasonably practicable.” Reducing occupational psychosocial risks is an imperative under the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. Denmark requires that “[a]t all stages, the work must be planned, organised and carried out in a responsible way to ensure that its impact on the psychosocial working environment is safe and healthy, individually and collectively, in both short and long term.” In the US, some states have addressed parts of the problem by including work-related PTSD in workers' compensation laws; workplace violence regulations; laws that require minimum nurse staffing levels or ban mandatory overtime for nurses; and paid sick leave, paid family leave, or coverage of domestic workers under labor laws.
Workplaces can also implement policies and programs to protect workers’ mental health. MATES in Construction is an Australian program that has since been adopted elsewhere and seeks to prevent suicide in the construction industry—an industry with the highest suicide risk in the United States—by increasing awareness of mental health challenges, reducing stigma, and connecting workers to support resources. In a similar way, Recovery Friendly Workplaces seek to create work environments that support people with substance use challenges in receiving the support and treatment they need.
While the prospect of similar regulations being applied nationally in the United States may seem bleak in the current political environment, especially following the recent Fifth Circuit Court ruling, the need to address the impact of work on mental health remains.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The Climate Bill Has Arrived. Big Oil Needs to Pick Up the Tab
Deadly climate change is here. We are all paying the price, but the polluters must be held to account for what they have wrought.
Sep 15, 2026
A new report from the UN has concluded that world-changing levels of global heating are now guaranteed. If we do end fossil fuels in the coming years, we can still avert potentially civilization-ending levels of heating, but no matter what we do, dangerous global warming is here to stay.
Given that 6,000 people are dead or disappeared following the recent climate disaster in Nepal, this shouldn’t come as a shock. It should, however, be a wake up call. Deadly climate change is here, and in addition to ending fossil fuels as quickly as possible, we’re going to have to spend a ton of money refitting society so that it’s fit for our new climate era.
Stormwater systems, dams, and sea walls will need to be upgraded to withstand more intense flooding. Schools, hospitals, and offices will need to be refitted to withstand punishing heatwaves. Early warning systems giving people a hope of surviving extreme weather events will need to be installed across the world. (Such a system could have saved hundreds of lives in Nepal.)
But building this new world is going to run up a bill of trillions of dollars. In the long run, these investments will pay off massively, both in avoided suffering and economically. But the initial investments need to be made. The question is: who is going to pick up the tab?
This question has vexed global climate talks for years. Low-income nations have done the least to cause global warming. Yet, they’re being hit hardest by punishing climate extremes. In response, Global South leaders have pushed the world’s wealthiest nations to create (the still shamefully underfunded) financing mechanisms, such as the Loss and Damage Fund and the Least Developed Countries Fund, to move money to the world’s poorest countries to support climate adaptation.
Low-income nations have done the least to cause global warming. Yet, they’re being hit hardest by punishing climate extremes.
Much more needs to be done to ensure nations that have benefited the most from fossil fuel-driven development are financially supporting those nations hit hardest by climate change. Indeed, this fact will likely underpin the fight for global justice for much of the remainder of the century.
Within wealthy nations, too, however, the question of who’s going to pay the upfront costs of adapting to a hotter, harsher world is also becoming a burning question.
In New York State, the cost of climate adaptation is projected at $519 billion by 2050. It was this observation that propelled the passage of New York’s Climate Superfund Act in late 2024: the legislation requires fossil fuel corporations to pay $75 billion to New York State over a 25-year period to support projects that would make New York’s public infrastructure more resilient in the face of climate change.
New York’s Climate Superfund Act makes perfect sense. After all, somebody's going to have to pick up that $519 billion tab―and the industry that has done the most to cause the problem should pay its fair share.
Unfortunately, New York’s efforts experienced a recent setback when a federal judge ruled that it cannot enact the legislation. While the case will likely be appealed, it’s a frustrating development.
But a single court ruling in a single court can’t stop a movement. Climate superfund legislation has been introduced in 16 states and one ruling in a single court district does nothing to stop other states from implementing their own Climate Superfund laws.
And across the world, additional efforts to make fossil fuel polluters pay for the climate crisis are proliferating.
In July, Portugal passed a 33% windfall tax on profits earned by oil companies due to the Iran War. A bill to that end has also been introduced in the US Senate, and been championed by French campaigners and leading UK politicians.
Legislation introduced in California, Hawaii, and New York would enable state attorneys general to sue fossil fuel companies for economic losses from climate disasters. In Connecticut, a bill that would place a 5% surcharge on fossil fuel companies' insurance policies, raising millions for climate resilience programs, is expected to advance in 2027.
Across the world... efforts to make fossil fuel polluters pay for the climate crisis are proliferating.
The fossil fuel industry clearly sees these attempts for accountability as a serious threat. Big Oil’s puppets in Congress have introduced legislation that would provide the fossil fuel industry with near total immunity from these kinds of lawsuits and legislation.
This front of the climate fight will enter a new phase next month, as the US Supreme Court hears arguments in the case between the City of Boulder and ExxonMobil. No matter the outcome of the Supreme Court case though, the question of who is going to fork out trillions of dollars for essential climate adaptation is only going to become more salient in the years ahead.
Our job is to make it clear: Fossil fuel corporations should pay for the harm they have caused.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Exxon, Chevron Post $26.5 Billion in Combined Profits as High Gas Prices Pummel Americans
"While Americans suffer from high prices and the Iran war imposes tens of billions of dollars of new costs on the American public, the oil industry wins big."
Jul 31, 2026
ExxonMobil and Chevron repeated $26.5 billion in combined profits in the second quarter of 2026 as US President Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran drove up gas prices around the world, punishing consumers at the pump while boosting oil companies' bottom lines.
Chevron on Friday announced $12 billion in profits for the second quarter—its highest quarterly profit in six years—while Exxon posted $14.5 billion. Exxon touted its "industry-leading shareholder distributions," which "totaled $9.4 billion, including $4.3 billion of dividends and $5.1 billion of share repurchases."
Reuters noted that the two companies' results "mirrored those of European oil majors TotalEnergies and Shell, which also posted banner second-quarter profits buoyed by higher oil prices."
The oil giants' earnings came weeks after a Harris survey found that 95% of Americans believe the US is facing an affordability crisis, with gas and groceries at the top of the list of "unaffordable goods and services." The current national average price for a gallon of gas is $4.1.
"The pattern is consistent: While Americans suffer from high prices and the Iran war imposes tens of billions of dollars of new costs on the American public, the oil industry wins big," a group of Democratic senators wrote in a recent letter. "President Trump has made the calculus explicit in his own words. When it comes to families facing increasing prices in the context of the Iran war, he said: ‘I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.'"
Sierra Club said Thursday that Big Oil's wartime profits are "paid by you," and called for a "windfall profits tax to recover a portion of the excess profits oil companies rake in during a global crisis and return that money to the people who paid higher prices."
"At the same time as oil and gas companies are preparing for a multibillion-dollar payday, they are working with the Trump administration to block investment in clean energy sources that would make American families more energy independent," the group added. "It's time to make polluters pay."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Big Oil Takeover 'Now Complete,' Watchdog Warns as Exxon Lawyer Joins Trump DOJ
“The Justice Department that should be fighting to protect clean air and water and avert catastrophic climate change will now work on behalf of polluters to advance the poisoning of people and the planet.”
Jul 07, 2026
The executive counsel at the fossil fuel behemoth ExxonMobil is leaving his role to join the Trump Justice Department's newly renamed Energy and Natural Resources Division, a move one watchdog organization said shows that "Big Oil’s capture of the US government is now complete."
Robert Levy, who worked at Exxon for 17 years, announced in a recent LinkedIn post that he is departing the company, whose profits surged amid the Trump administration's illegal war on Iran. Levy will reportedly serve as senior counsel at the DOJ's Energy and Natural Resources Division, which the Trump Justice Department renamed last month from the Environment and Natural Resources Division.
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement Monday that "the new so-called Energy and Natural Resources Division at the Justice Department explicitly aims to abuse emergency powers to drive oil and gas production, override state environmental enforcement, and generally serve at the beck and call of Big Oil."
"Nothing could make that more clear than the naming of Robert Levy, ExxonMobil’s former executive counsel, a position that had him leading the company’s legal strategy on advocacy and civil justice, to run the division," said Weissman. "The Justice Department that should be fighting to protect clean air and water and avert catastrophic climate change will now work on behalf of polluters to advance the poisoning of people and the planet."
US President Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on delivering massive, climate-destroying wins for the oil and gas industry, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support the president's White House bid and the campaigns of his Republican allies.
Fossil fuel giants have received a significant return on their investment. As Owen Bacskai of the Brennan Center for Justice noted, Trump's "signature legislative package—which one executive deemed 'positive for us across all of our top priorities'—gives oil and gas firms $18 billion in tax incentives while rolling back incentives for clean energy alternatives."
Trump has also "placed fossil fuel allies in charge of the agencies that oversee the industry and fast-tracked drilling projects on public lands," Bacskai wrote. "In just his first 100 days back in office, Trump took at least 145 actions to undo environmental rules—more than he reversed during his entire first term as president. Before Trump even reentered the White House, the industry was reportedly pre-drafting executive orders for him to issue."
Perhaps the biggest gift to Big Oil was the Environmental Protection Agency's decision earlier this year to repeal the "endangerment finding" underpinning climate regulations.
Critics expect more of the same industry-friendly actions from the Trump DOJ's Energy and Natural Resources Division, which last week touted its role in defending "Trump’s executive orders on unleashing American energy, reinvigorating the clean coal industry, and declaring an energy emergency."
“The Justice Department that should be fighting to protect clean air and water and avert catastrophic climate change will now work on behalf of polluters to advance the poisoning of people and the planet," said Weissman of Public Citizen.
Last year, Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project released an analysis showing that the Trump administration has installed dozens of former fossil fuel industry employees, executives, and lawyers across the federal government, positioning Big Oil allies to advance "the massive expansion of polluting energy, the destruction of public lands, and the sabotage and suppression of renewable energy."
“This is nothing short of a Texas oil industry takeover of the US government at the expense of consumers, the climate, public health, and public lands and waters,” Alan Zibel, a research director at Public Citizen, said at the time of the report's release. "To execute his extreme, reckless, backward-looking fossil fuel agenda, Trump has stocked his administration with fossil fuel staffers and ideologues."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Climate Denier Lee Raymond Left the World Hotter Than He Found It
I don’t believe a loving God consigns people to eternal damnation. But I do believe that Raymond, Exxon, and Chase have helped send the rest of us to a kind of hell.
Jun 12, 2026
Here’s how Lee Raymond’s hometown paper, the Houston Chronicle, remembered him Thursday morning.
The Texas paper was more direct, and more accurate, than anyone else covering the story. The Times obit gave top billing to the fact that he led the acquisition of Mobil and “cut costs relentlessly;” the Wall Street Journal waited till paragraph six to note that he was “openly skeptical” of climate science (much like The Wall Street Journal). But the Chron had it right—when people think back in a hundred years or a thousand or ten thousand, the one thing worth remembering about him will be the crucial role he played in holding back action on climate change.
I’m going to recount the lowlights of the story here, and add one that gets very little notice in the obituaries, but that ties directly to the ongoing crisis.
Raymond was a research engineer who spent his whole career at what was then the world’s largest company. He joined its board in 1984, already a leading candidate for CEO, which means he was near the top during the 1980s, the period when (as we now know thanks to great investigative reporting) the company’s scientists correctly identified the dangers of global warming and linked them directly to Exxon’s products. That research, as Inside Climate News reported in 2015,
laid the groundwork for a 1982 corporate primer on carbon dioxide and climate change prepared by its environmental affairs office. Marked “not to be distributed externally,” it contained information that “has been given wide circulation to Exxon management.” In it, the company recognized, despite the many lingering unknowns, that heading off global warming “would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion.”
Unless that happened, “there are some potentially catastrophic events that must be considered,” the primer said, citing independent experts. “Once the effects are measurable, they might not be reversible.”
This was, of course, the same decade when Jim Hansen was carrying out his groundbreaking research at NASA (and I was writing The End of Nature). Exxon, as it turns out, was on precisely the same wavelength. Here’s, to me, one of the great historical what-ifs: Imagine that, on the night that Hansen made his remarks to Congress, an Exxon exec like Raymond had gone on the evening news and told Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, or Peter Jennings that “our research shows pretty much the same thing.” No one would have accused Exxon of climate alarmism; instead, we would have gotten to work as a civilization.
Instead, they chose denial. And it was Raymond who played a lead role, as Exxon helped form the Global Climate Coalition, first of the obfuscation fronts. He became the spokesman for anti-science in many ways: In 1997, as the world approached the first global climate talks in Kyoto, he gave what may be a speech second only in importance to Hansen’s original testimony. Speaking in Beijing to the Worl Petroleum Congress, he contended that the world was cooling, that there was no way to know if carbon dioxide was to blame, and that in any event “it is highly unlikely that the temperature in the middle of the next century will be significantly affected whether policies are enacted now or 20 years from now.”
These, of course, were exactly the things Exxon’s scientists had told them were not true. Indeed, they’d been explicitly warned that
man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.
And Exxon had believed its scientists. As a 2015 Los Angeles Times report made clear, they’d begun building drilling rigs higher to counteract rising sea levels, and plotting out what parts of the Arctic might be prime for oil drilling once they’d helped melt the ice.
Exxon, more than any single force on Earth, made sure that the planet didn’t address climate change while it had time. Given what it knew in the 1980s Exxon could have had a head start on building and owning the solutions like sun and wind. But, as one of Raymond’s successors said two years ago, that didn’t happen because “we don’t see the ability to generate above-average returns for our shareholders” with clean energy. And he was right. You can make money putting up solar panels, but you can’t make Exxon money, because the sun delivers energy for free. It doesn’t offer the same scope for greed.
And greed was the word here. For his role in helping wreck the Earth’s climate system, Exxon paid him $686 million, or $144,573 a day, during his tenure as CEO. His retirement package was $400 million.
And even when he finally left Exxon in 2005 he continued on doing damage—this is the often overlooked part of his story. He was the lead independent director at JP Morgan Chase, which had been the Exxon house bank, and which, as I chronicled for Rolling Stone in 2020, became the fossil fuel industry’s biggest lender—the “doomsday bank.”
Many of us ginned up a campaign to get him off that board (along with Rev. Lennox Yearwood and other protesters, and with Jane Fonda looking in through the glass windows, I was arrested at a DC Chase branch to help kick off that fight in 2020). It was eventually successful—that summer he was demoted as lead director, and left the board in December.
But Raymond’s legacy lives on. Just as Exxon has gone on pumping out oil (and climate nonsense), Chase has kept pumping out money. As the brand new edition of the Banking on Climate Chaos report pointed out last week, Chase remains the No. 1 financier of fossil fuels around the world, besting Mitsubishi, Citigroup, and Bank of America; since 2021 they’ve pumped a quarter-trillion dollars into this effort. Asked by The Guardian for a comment, a Chase spokesman said, “As one of the world’s largest financiers of energy, we support the full range of energy solutions and technologies, with a focus on reliability, affordability, security, and long-term resilience.” That kind of bland corporate-speak hides an almost unimaginable multitude of sins.
Like a great many Christians, I don’t believe a loving God consigns people to eternal damnation. But I do believe that Lee Raymond, Exxon, and Chase have helped send the rest of us to a kind of hell. As Jeff Masters just reported:
The world recorded its highest burned area for any January-May during the past 15 years, with more than 150 million hectares burned globally—22% higher than the previous high set in 2020 and about double the recent average for this period. In the US, the burned area so far in 2026 has been the highest for at least the past 10 years—about double the 10-year average—according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressives Say 'No Taxpayer Subsidies' as Big Oil Balks at Trump's Call to Invest in Venezuela
"Trump must not give these companies billions in handouts and stick American taxpayers with the bill," implored Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Jan 09, 2026
ExxonMobil's CEO told President Donald Trump during a Friday meeting that Venezuela is currently "uninvestible" following the US invasion and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, underscoring fears that American taxpayers will be left footing the bill for the administration's goal of exploiting the South American nation's vast petroleum resources.
Trump had hoped to convince executives from around two dozen oil companies to invest in Venezuela after the president claimed US firms pledged to spend at least $100 billion in the country. However, Trump got a reality check during Friday's White House meeting, as at least one Big Oil CEO balked at committing financial and other resources in an uncertain political, legal, and security environment.
“If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable,” ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods told Trump during the meeting. “Significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system. There has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be a change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.”
Exxon CEO: If you look at the commercial constructs, frameworks in place in Venezuela today, it's uninvestable. Significant changes have to be made to these frameworks, the legal system. There has to be durable investment protections and change to the hydrocarbon laws. pic.twitter.com/vpdH6ftfzm
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 9, 2026
There is also skepticism regarding Trump's promise of "total safety" for investors in Venezuela amid deadly US military aggression and regime change.
However, many of the executives—who stand to make billions of dollars from the invasion—told Trump that they remain eager to eventually reap the rewards of any potential US takeover of Venezuela's vast oil resources.
The oil executives' apparent aversion to immediate investment in Venezuela—and Trump's own admission that the American people might end up reimbursing Big Oil for its efforts—prompted backlash from taxpayer advocates.
"Trump must not give these companies billions in handouts and stick American taxpayers with the bill," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media Friday. "And oil execs should commit now: no taxpayer subsidies, no special favors from the White House."
Sam Ratner, policy director at the group Win Without War, said Wednesday that "already today, Trump was saying that US taxpayers should front the money to rebuild Venezuelan oil infrastructure, all while oil companies keep the proceeds from the oil."
"This is not just a war for oil, but a war for oil executives," Ratner added.
Noting that "Big Oil spent nearly $100 million to get Trump elected in 2024," former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich—who served during the Clinton administration—described Friday's meeting as "returning the favor" and "oligarchy in action."
According to an analysis by the advocacy group Climate Power, fossil fuel industry interests spent nearly $450 million during the 2024 election cycle in support of Trump and other Republican candidates and initiatives.
Trump shows you his priorities–Big Oil companies.“Running” Venezuela is all about enriching his donors.The American people are done fighting foreign wars to pad the pockets of oil executives.
[image or embed]
— Rep. Jason Crow (@crow.house.gov) January 9, 2026 at 12:35 PM
Reich and others also noted that Trump informed oil executives about the Venezuelan invasion even before he notified members of Congress.
"That tells you everything you need to know: It was never about 'narcoterrorism' and always about oil," Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) said on Bluesky.
The legal watchdog Democracy Forward this week filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding information about any possible Trump administration collusion with Big Oil in the lead-up to the Venezuela invasion.
Other observers shot down assertions by Trump and members of his administration that the attack on Venezuela and Maduro's ouster are ultimately about restoring democracy.
"Want to know who’s meeting with Trump this morning about Venezuela’s future?" Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) asked on X.
"Not pro-democracy leaders," she said. "Oil and gas executives."
Keep ReadingShow Less
How the Past 25 Years of Big Oil's Lie-Filled Ads Have Delivered 'Climate Catastrophe'
"Big Oil's climate deception has evolved from lying about the problem to lying about solutions," said the head of the Center for Climate Integrity.
Dec 11, 2025
A group that supports communities' efforts to hold Big Oil accountable for decades of deception related to the climate emergency released a report on Thursday after reviewing more than 300 advertisements from four fossil fuel giants since 2000.
Over the past decade, people across academia, civil society, Congress, and journalism have examined the evolving lies of oil and gas giants, which have long been accused of using Big Tobacco's playbook.
"Using evidence from congressional investigations, advertising, and public relations documents, independent journalism, and watchdog reports," the new analysis states, "Big Oil's Deceptive Climate Ads explains how the pervasive and misleading messaging in BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell’s advertisements has not only misrepresented the companies' business practices, but, over the span of two and a half decades, effectively cultivated a larger, deceptive narrative that oil and gas companies are leaders in the fight against climate change, when in fact they are actively fueling climate catastrophe around the globe."
The Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) report notes that "while oil and gas companies and their trade associations publicly denied the risks and realities of climate change for decades, growing public understanding of climate science around the turn of the 21st century eventually meant that outright denial was no longer sufficient to protect their bottom line."
NEW: For 25 years, four oil giants sold false climate promises through deceptive ad campaigns.Our report examined 300+ ads from BP, Chevron, Exxon, and Shell from 2000-2025. Together they push a false narrative that Big Oil is leading climate solutions. In reality, they're fueling catastrophe.
[image or embed]
— Center for Climate Integrity (@climateintegrity.org) December 11, 2025 at 8:54 AM
"During this period, major oil and gas companies began to reposition themselves publicly as active partners in the fight against climate change, even while they continued to increase fossil fuel production, invest minimally in clean energy, oppose energy efficiency initiatives, and promote technically or economically infeasible solutions," the document details.
"To convey this misleading image to the public," the publication continues, "Big Oil companies carried out extensive advertising campaigns, inundating the public with messaging that creates an overall deceptive portrait of their true role in the climate crisis."
CCI sorted the ads across seven categories of deception: emissions reductions, renewables investments, individual action, natural gas, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and algae biofuels. The group found that "these skillfully crafted advertisements often include partially truthful statements but omit relevant contextual information to create an inaccurate or incomplete representation of the initiative, product, or technology they promote."
"For instance, advertisements that portray natural gas as beneficial for the climate because it 'lowers emissions' are misleading by omission, because although gas produces less CO2 and other pollutants than coal when burned, it still emits significant quantities of greenhouse gases, including CO2 and methane, that pose a serious threat to the climate," the publication points out. "This tactic, known as paltering, has been at the core of Big Oil companies' climate advertisements for the past 25 years."
(Image: Big Oil's Deceptive Climate Ads)
The report also acknowledges the public response: "Market research shows BP's 'Beyond Petroleum' campaign increased brand favorability among US and UK audiences, leading viewers to associate the oil giant with efforts to reduce carbon emissions at a time when it was the largest producer of fossil fuels in the UK and North America. Chevron's 'Real Issues' campaign, which promoted its energy conservation initiatives and renewables investments, improved the company's reputation among ad-exposed audiences."
The publication comes as the climate emergency continues to worsen, with deadly impacts, and world leaders fail to take adequate steps toward "a just, equitable, fossil-free future." Meanwhile, communities continue to call for not only action to limit future global warming but also consequences for the big polluters that created the global crisis.
The report similarly concludes that "oil and gas companies—including BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell—must be held accountable for the damages their deception has caused. As climate accountability lawsuits filed by communities across the US make their way through the courts, ongoing advertising deception by the four oil majors' in this report demands further scrutiny and investigation."
CCI president Richard Wiles echoed that demand in a Thursday statement: "Big Oil's climate deception has evolved from lying about the problem to lying about solutions. For two-and-a-half decades now, these companies have sold the public a false and misleading image of their industry as working to solve the climate crisis, all while doubling down on fossil fuels and making the problem worse."
According to Wiles, "Any business that floods consumers with such brazenly deceptive advertising must be held accountable."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Maduro Says US Pointing '1,200 Missiles' at Venezuela After Trump Sends More Warships
One anonymous American military official told Axios that the US seemed to be revving up for "Noriega part two," suggesting a regime change war may be on the horizon.
Sep 02, 2025
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said the United States was pointing "1,200 missiles" at his country during a news conference Monday, and issued a stark warning that he was prepared to "constitutionally declare a republic in arms" should the US attack.
The US is set to raise the number of military vessels deployed near Venezuela to eight this week, which Maduro described as "the greatest threat that has been seen on our continent in the last 100 years."
Following an authorization by Trump to use military force against Latin American drug cartels, the Associated Press and CBS News report that "the US Navy now has two Aegis guided-missile destroyers—the USS Gravely and the USS Jason Dunham—in the Caribbean, as well as the destroyer USS Sampson and the cruiser USS Lake Erie in the waters off Latin America."
This week, an anonymous Defense Department official told the AP that, "three amphibious assault ships—a force that encompasses more than 4,000 sailors and Marines—would be entering the region this week."
"In response to maximum military pressure," Maduro told the international press, "we have declared maximum readiness to defend Venezuela," adding that the country "will never give in to blackmail or threats of any kind."
Though the US has not made any public threats to invade Venezuela, an unnamed official told Axios Thursday that Trump was planning something akin to "Noriega part two," referring to the US-led invasion of Panama, which overthrew its leader, Manuel Noriega, in 1989.
"The president has asked for a menu of options," the official added, "and ultimately this is the president's decision about what to do next, but Maduro should be shitting bricks."
Trump has a long history of calling for US intervention to overthrow the South American nation's government.
During Trump's first term, he repeatedly suggested that the US should invade Venezuela to take Maduro out—an idea that his top aides rebuffed.
Trump instead dramatically escalated sanctions on Venezuela, which many studies have shown contributed to the nation's historic economic crisis. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explicitly acknowledged that the goal of these sanctions was to push the Venezuelan people to topple Maduro.
In 2023, following his first presidency, Trump lamented at a rally that the US had to purchase oil from Venezuela, saying that if he were in charge, "We would have taken [Venezuela] over; we would have gotten to all that oil; it would have been right next door."
According to Responsible Statecraft, lobbying groups in bed with Exxon Mobil have been leading the campaign for "maximum pressure" against Venezuela, with the goal of protecting the company's control of over 11 billion barrels of oil in neighboring Guyana, which has been referred to as a "petrostate" closely aligned with the oil giant.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made several posts in support of Guyana as it backed Trump's escalation with Venezuela.
As Joseph Bouchard and Nick Cleveland-Stout wrote:
Rubio has all but committed to a U.S. security guarantee for Guyana and Exxon. On a visit to Guyana in March, he warned Venezuela against attacking Exxon's oil fields. "It woultd be a very bad day for the Venezuelan regime if they were ever to attack Guyana or attack ExxonMobil," Rubio said then.
Prior to that, Rubio obliquely suggested in a Fox Business interview that there may be plans in the works to force Maduro out of power, saying the Venezuelan president was "going to have to be dealt with."
On Monday, Maduro said Rubio was leading Trump "into a bloodbath... with a massacre against the people of Venezuela."
Trump's deployment of warships to Venezuela is part of what he says is an effort to use military force against drug cartels, which his administration has dubbed terrorist groups.
Though Trump has named Maduro as a global drug kingpin and the leader of the Venezuelan Cartel de los Soles, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil disputed that accusation Monday, calling it a "false narrative."
He cited the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's 2025 World Drug Report, which says that Venezuela is not a major cocaine-producing or transit country.
This is backed up by data from the US Drug Enforcement Agency, which has found that 84% of the cocaine seized in the US comes from Colombia.
According to UNODC, "the majority of Colombian cocaine is being trafficked north along the Pacific coast," rather than trafficked through Venezuela. Just 2% of all the cocaine seized by UNODC is in Venezuela, ranking it sixth among Latin American countries.
"For there to be a drug cartel, either you produce (the drugs), you process it, or you traffic it," Venezuelan congresswoman Blanca Eekhout told CNN. "If there is no cultivation, production, or drug trafficking in Venezuela, how can there be a cartel? It's unsustainable."
As Trump's military threats have revved up, Maduro has mobilized tens of thousands of soldiers and several warships to prepare for a possible invasion.
This weekend, the streets of Caracas filled up with demonstrators opposing US aggression and supporting Maduro's military recruitment efforts. They were joined by supporters across the globe in cities including London, Johannesburg, Sydney, and Mexico City.
(Video: Forbes)
Even members of Maduro's opposition have harshly criticized the idea of US intervention. Henrique Capriles, a frequent critic and one-time presidential opponent of Maduro, told the BBC that although he opposes Maduro's antidemocratic actions in the most recent election, he wants to see the tensions between Venezuela and the US solved through negotiations rather than gunfire.
"There are no good wars; they're all bad. That's my position, and I'm not afraid to express it publicly," Capriles said. "Most of the people who want a military solution and a US invasion don't live in Venezuela. They don't even consider the consequences. Human lives are lost."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Lina Khan Slams Trump FTC for Giving Oil Executives a Free Pass After Price-Fixing Scandal
Khan accused the administration of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
Jul 18, 2025
A ban imposed last year by top antitrust enforcer Lina Khan under the Biden administration had stopped two fossil fuel CEOs accused of colluding on oil prices from serving on powerful corporate boards, with the Federal Trade Commission saying at the time that the order would "help ensure American consumers benefit from lower prices at the pump."
But the Trump administration on Thursday signaled no interest in ensuring oil companies won't engage in price-fixing and collusion to boost profits at the expense of working families as the FTC overturned the order that prevented former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield and Hess CEO John Hess from serving on the boards of ExxonMobil and Chevron, respectively.
Exxon bought Pioneer for $59.5 billion last year, while Chevron's purchase of Hess was announced Friday after months of arbitration proceedings.
The FTC, now led by pro-corporate Republican Andrew Ferguson, said the commission's complaints about Sheffield's and Hess's communications with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) did not "plead any antitrust law violation" or show that the acquisitions of the smaller companies and the CEO's positions on the boards "would be anticompetitive."
The decision, said Elyse Schupak, a policy advocate with Public Citizen's Climate Program, "undermines accountability for the CEOs accused of illegally colluding with OPEC to increase profits by driving up energy prices for American families and businesses."
Khan's investigation last year found the Sheffield had communicated with OPEC about slashing oil production and driving up consumer prices while claiming Biden administration policies were to blame, prompting U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) to say "jail time should seriously be considered" for the CEO.
"The FTC needs to be doing more to fully rout out Big Oil's anticompetitive behavior. But Ferguson has moved the FTC in the complete opposite direction."
The FTC also found that Hess "stressed the importance of oil market stability and inventory management and encouraged [OPEC] officials to take actions on these issues and speak about them at different events."
One analysis by Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project found that price-fixing schemes by corporations—not inflation—were to blame for 27% of the higher prices American families faced in 2021.
Khan on Thursday accused President Donald Trump's FTC of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
The commission's three Republican members voted to allow Sheffield and Hess to serve on the boards—even as one of them, Commissioner Mark Meador, said that OPEC operates "as a de facto cartel" and warned the FTC "should not hesitate to bring enforcement actions against actual collusion."
Ferguson, meanwhile, claimed that banning Sheffield and Hess from the company boards "would damage the FTC's credibility and undermine its mission"—a statement that was denounced by the government watchdog Revolving Door Project.
"Banning a C-suite executive who tried to inflate oil prices isn't the move that 'damages' the FTC's credibility. It's Andrew Ferguson's willingness to absolve such actions that undermines the agency's mission to promote competition," said the group.
"The FTC needs to be doing more to fully rout out Big Oil's anticompetitive behavior," added Revolving Door Project. "But Ferguson has moved the FTC in the complete opposite direction—signaling to corporate America that they won't be held accountable for fleecing the public."
Schupak said that "while the Trump administration feigns interest in bringing energy prices down, its policies—fast-tracking export projects, rolling back regulatory safeguards, and halting enforcement actions for corporate wrongdoing—reveal the administration is far more interested in boosting the profitability of the oil and gas industry than providing Americans any relief or safeguarding them against corruption."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy