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'Catastrophic': Fast-Tracking of Line 5 Tunnel Under Great Lakes Denounced as Big Oil Gift From Trump
"This is a travesty and a danger to the Great Lakes," wrote one activist.
Apr 16, 2025
Environmentalists warned Wednesday that the drinking water for over 40 million people is now at greater risk after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under U.S. President Donald Trump announced fast-track procedures for the controversial Line 5 oil and gas pipeline tunnel project in the nation's Great Lakes region.
The emergency declaration for the project stems from Trump's executive order declaring a national energy emergency on his first day back in the White House.
"The only energy 'emergency' the American people face is Trump's efforts to disregard clean air and water safeguards in order to rush through dirty, dangerous fossil fuel projects," said Mahyar Sorour, a director at the green group Sierra Club, in response to the news.
The Line 5 pipeline carries oil and gas for 645 miles from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario, crossing Michigan's two peninsulas, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
A section of the pipeline runs below the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. The pipeline is owned by the Canadian oil and gas transport company Enbridge, which has proposed relocating the section of the Line 5 pipeline that runs below the Straits of Macinack into a tunnel below the lakebed. The company claims this solution, its "Great Lakes Tunnel Project," will eliminate any chance of a "pipeline incident in the Straits."
Data compiled by a National Wildlife Federation researcher and released in 2017 found that Line 5 had spilled at least 1.13 million gallons of oil in 29 incidents between 1968 and 2017.
"Trump has proven yet again that he'll back Big Oil and corporate interests over the safety and well-being of real people," said Sierra Club Michigan chapter director Elayne Coleman. "Fast-tracking the Line 5 tunnel puts us at risk for catastrophic damage. An oil spill would contaminate the water for tens of millions, cost billions of taxpayer dollars to clean up, and destroy Michigan fishing and tourism."
Coleman also called on Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to step in and stop the project.
Oil and Water Don’t Mix, a Michigan group that opposes Line 5, wrote Wednesday that "Now would be a good time for Gov. Whitmer to stand up for the Great Lakes and oppose the Line 5 tunnel."
In a social media post, veteran water protection advocate and author Maude Barlow called the move by Trump a "travesty and a danger to the Great Lakes!"
The special designation for the Line 5 tunnel project comes on the heels of a Keystone oil pipeline spill earlier in April. On April 8, that pipeline was shut down after it ruptured, spilling an estimated 3,500 barrels of oil into an agricultural field in North Dakota.
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'Travesty of Justice': Jury Finds Greenpeace Must Pay Over $660 Million in Dakota Access Pipeline Case
"We will not be silenced," the green group said in response to the verdict.
Mar 19, 2025
Climate campaigners swiftly sounded the alarm on Wednesday after a North Dakota jury awarded Energy Transfer and its subsidiary more than $660 million in the fossil fuel giant's case targeting Greenpeace for protests against the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline.
While Energy Transfer called the verdict a "win... for the people of Mandan and throughout North Dakota," environmentalist Jon Hinck condemned it as a "travesty of justice."
Hinck and others argue the case against Greenpeace International and two of its entities in the United States is a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) intended to intimidate opponents of climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects.
OUTRAGE: A Big Oil-stacked jury just sided with corporate power, slapping Greenpeace with millions in damages for standing with Indigenous water protectors against DAPL. This is a dangerous attack on the right to protest, but the fight is not over. apnews.com/article/gree...
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— Center for Constitutional Rights ( @ccrjustice.org) March 19, 2025 at 6:04 PM
"This case should alarm everyone, no matter their political inclinations," said Sushma Raman, interim executive director of Greenpeace's U.S. entities, in a statement. "It's part of a renewed push by corporations to weaponize our courts to silence dissent. We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech. These rights are critical for any work toward ensuring justice—and that's why we will continue fighting back together, in solidarity. While Big Oil bullies can try to stop a single group, they can't stop a movement."
As The New York Times reported Wednesday:
Greenpeace had maintained that it played only a minor part in demonstrations led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It had portrayed the lawsuit as an attempt to stifle oil industry critics, but a jury apparently disagreed.
The nine-person jury in the Morton County courthouse in Mandan, North Dakota, about 45 minutes north of where the protests took place, returned the verdict after roughly two days of deliberating.
Addressing the legal loss on social media, Greenpeace International vowed that "we will not be silenced."
🚨BREAKING🚨 The trial verdict is in. A jury in the Morton County courthouse found Greenpeace International and two Greenpeace entities in the United States liable for over US$ 660 million combined in Energy Transfer’s meritless SLAPP lawsuit. #WeWillNotBeSilenced
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— Greenpeace International 🌍 ( @greenpeace.org) March 19, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Greenpeace International executive director Mads Christensen echoed that sentiment and pointed to U.S. President Donald Trump's second term as a danger to people and the planet. As the advocacy leader put it: "We are witnessing a disastrous return to the reckless behavior that fueled the climate crisis, deepened environmental racism, and put fossil fuel profits over public health and a livable planet. The previous Trump administration spent four years dismantling protections for clean air, water, and Indigenous sovereignty, and now along with its allies wants to finish the job by silencing protest."
Asked by The Associated Press if Greenpeace plans to appeal just after the verdict, senior legal adviser Deepa Padmanabha said, "We know that this fight is not over."
While the case has sparked fears that a loss in court could end Greenpeace, Padmanabha told AP that the globally known group's work "is never going stop." The adviser added, "That's the really important message today, and we're just walking out and we're going to get together and figure out what our next steps are."
I hate it here. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/c...
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— Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) (@doctorvive.bsky.social) March 19, 2025 at 4:19 PM
An independent trial monitoring committee said in a statement that the verdict "reflects a deeply flawed trial with multiple due process violations that denied Greenpeace the ability to present anything close to a full defense."
Marty Garbus, a longtime First Amendment lawyer who is part of the committee, said: "In my six decades of legal practice, I have never witnessed a trial as unfair as the one against Greenpeace that just ended in the courts of North Dakota. This is one of the most important cases in American history."
"The law that can come down in this case can affect any demonstration, religious or political. It's far bigger than the environmental movement. Yet the court in North Dakota abdicated its sacred duty to conduct a fair and public trial and instead let Energy Transfer run roughshod over the rule of law," he added. "Greenpeace has a very strong case on appeal. I believe there is a good chance it ultimately will win both in court and in the court of public opinion."
Greenpeace International general counsel Kristin Casper later said in a statement that "Energy Transfer hasn't heard the last of us in this fight. We're just getting started with our anti-SLAPP lawsuit against Energy Transfer's attacks on free speech and peaceful protest. We will see Energy Transfer in court this July in the Netherlands."
As the
Times detailed, the global group "this year had countersued Energy Transfer in the Netherlands, invoking a new European Union directive against SLAPP suits as well as Dutch law."
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25 Dems Vote to Confirm Trump's Interior Secretary, Who Conservationists Warn Endangers the Planet
"Doug Burgum will just be another rubber stamp for Trump's reckless energy agenda," wrote one conservationist.
Jan 31, 2025
With the help of 25 Democrats, the Senate voted Thursday to confirm U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of the Interior, billionaire and former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum—an ally of the fossil fuel industry.
Environmental groups expressed alarm over Burgum's nomination. As secretary of the interior, Burgum will oversee hundreds of millions of acres of federal land and water, and he has also been tapped as the president's "energy czar" and to lead a separate White House energy council.
During his confirmation hearing, Burgum told senators that the U.S. can use energy development as a way to promote peace and to lower consumer costs, and also raised concerns about the reliability of renewable energy sources promoted during the Biden administration, according to CBS News.
Burgum sailed through his confirmation process, securing his position atop the agency with a vote of 79-18.
The 18 senators who did not vote for him were: Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) were absent.
Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, a trade associate and lobbying firm for the U.S. oil industry, expressed enthusiasm about Burgum's confirmation, according to The Washington Post.
"Doug Burgum has long been a champion for American energy leadership," Sommers said in a statement to the Post. "We look forward to working with him to implement a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing, starting with removing barriers to development on federal lands and waters and developing a new five-year offshore program."
Meanwhile, environmental groups blasted the Senate's confirmation of Burgum.
"Doug Burgum will just be another rubber stamp for Trump's reckless energy agenda. That isn't the leadership our public lands need," said Kristen Miller, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League, in a statement Friday. "Burgum's loyalty to Trump ignores both the economic realities and the climate crisis we're facing today, especially in Alaska."
The youth climate organization Sunrise Movement called Burgum's confirmation "a win for Big Oil billionaires" and pointed to Burgum's reported role in planning a meeting between Trump and energy executives in spring 2024, during which Trump suggested that they raise $1 billion for his campaign in exchange for tax breaks and large-scale deregulation.
"From opening more public lands for extraction to attacking countless protections of lands, water, and wildlife, it's clear that President Trump is committed to expanding fossil fuels and catering to industry at the expense of our climate, public lands and waters, and wildlife," according to a Wednesday letter sent to the Senate from over 30 environmental, watchdog, and public interest groups. "Doug Burgum will be charged with carrying out this unpopular and dangerous agenda."
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'I Won't Let My Future Burn': Protesters Arrested at Fracking CEO Chris Wright's Senate Hearing
"The climate crisis is here. Oil and gas CEOs like Chris Wright have blood on their hands, and they have no place in our government," said Sunrise Movement's Aru Shiney-Ajay.
Jan 15, 2025
While senators questioned Chris Wright—the CEO of Liberty Energy, a fracking company, and President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be the next secretary of energy—10 activists were arrested for disrupting Wright's confirmation hearing on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Sunrise Movement, a youth climate group.
"I am 18 years old and I want a future, but wealthy and powerful special interests are selling that future to make a profit," said Adah Crandall, one of those arrested, according to the statement. "That's why I stood up today, for myself and all the young people right now who are terrified about the world we will live in when we are Chris Wright's age."
Protestors with the Sunrise Movement stationed outside of the confirmation hearing wore shirts that said "I WON'T LET MY FUTURE BURN" and held up banners that read "Oil CEOs Profit, LA Burns"—in references to the ongoing wildfires ravaging the Los Angeles area.
"The climate crisis is here. Oil and gas CEOs like Chris Wright have blood on their hands, and they have no place in our government,” said Sunrise executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay, in the statement. "Fossil fuel CEOs knew—before we were born—that burning fossil fuels would cause disasters like these fires in LA. They condemned us to die."
Wright's nomination, which appears likely given that Republicans hold a 53-47 majority Senate, has drawn the ire of climate and watchdog groups more broadly.
Mahyar Sorour, a director at the Sierra Club, recently called Wright the "personification" of a conflict of interest, noting that he has spent decades denying the connection between his company's work and the climate emergency while "getting rich from polluting, dangerous fracking for methane gas."
In 2021, Wright—who has been a longtime evangelist for fossil fuels—said on a podcast that planetary heating "is not" fueling wildfires—a claim directly at odds with scientists' warning that the changing climate, driven by fossil fuel extraction, is increasing the frequency and intensity of wildfires in Western states as well as areas that have historically faced far less destructive fire seasons.
Wright's past remarks resurfaced during his hearing Wednesday. During a tense exchange, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said that Wright had once written on social media that "the hype over wildfires is just hype to justify more impoverishment from bad government policies." Padilla asked Wright if he still believes wildfires are just hype. Wright said that he watched the fires unfold with "sorrow and fear" but didn't retract his past statement when pressed by Padilla.
"I stand by my past comments," Wright said.
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How Big Oil Lobbied Its Way Out of Accountability for the LA Fires
"Accountability is an existential threat to their business model, and their business model is an existential threat to all of us, and that’s the bottom line," said Meghan Sahli-Wells, the former mayor of Culver City.
Jan 15, 2025
As devastating wildfires continue to burn in the Los Angeles region on Wednesday—placing tens of thousands of Californians under evacuation orders and causing over $250 billion in economic damages by one estimate—a pair of new reports highlight how fossil fuel companies have dodged responsibility for their role in the destruction and hampered the state's ability to fight back by depriving it of funds.
California's fossil fuel industry deployed lobbying muscle to kill legislation that would compel polluters to pay into a fund that would help prevent disasters and aid cleanup efforts, and has taken advantage of a tax loophole to deprives the state of corporate tax revenue, thereby "putting climate and social programs in peril." In the case of the former, California's biggest fossil fuel trade group, the Western States Petroleum Association, recently launched a digital campaign that appears aimed at throwing cold water on any such legislative efforts.
According to The Guardian, the Polluters Pay Climate Cost Recovery Act of 2024 appeared on 76% of the 74 lobby filings submitted in 2024 by the oil company Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association.
The legislation—which didn't make it out of the state senate in 2024—would, if enacted, create a recovery program forcing fossil fuel polluters to pay their "fair share of the damage caused by the sale of their products" during the period of 2000 to 2020, according to the nonprofit newsroom CalMatters.
According to The Guardian, the filings from those two firms that included this specific bill totaled over $30 million—though lobbying laws do not require a breakdown that would make clear how much was spent specifically on the "polluter pay" law.
With Los Angeles burning, there's renewed interest in passing the bill, The Guardian reports, citing supporters of the legislation. But Western States Petroleum Association isn't sitting idly by. On January 8, the group launched ads that suggest measures like the "polluter pay" bill would force them to increase oil prices. The ads, which appear to have been taken down, do "not specifically mention the polluter pay bill, it echoes the 2024 campaign that did," wrote The Guardian.
"Accountability is an existential threat to their business model, and their business model is an existential threat to all of us, and that’s the bottom line," said Meghan Sahli-Wells, the former mayor of Culver City who currently works for the environmental advocacy group Elected Officials To Protect America, told the paper.
Meanwhile, another report from The Climate Center—a think tank and "do-tank" focused on curbing pollution—has thrust a tax loophole long used by multinational oil and gas companies, into the spotlight.
The report released last week details how "years of litigation and lobbying by oil and gas majors like ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Shell Oil" are responsible for a large corporate tax avoidance policy that is known as the "Water's Edge election" that became law in 1986.
The law allows multinational corporations to "elect" avoid taxes on earnings they designate as beyond the "water's edge" of the borders of states in which they operate, according to The Climate Center.
"Closing the loophole as it applies to the oil and gas industry could put anywhere between $75 to $146 million per year back into the state’s budget," the report states.
For context, California closed a $46 billion budget shortfall last year, including by enacting cuts to climate and clean air programs.
"The water's edge tax loophole allows multinational fossil fuel corporations to dodge paying their fair share of taxes that can help fund vital environmental projects, which could include wildfire preparedness," California Assemblymember Damon Connolly (D-12) told the progressive outlet The Lever, the first outlet to report on the findings.
California lawmakers last year passed a bill that took aim at some aspects of the loophole, but an advocacy group whose board of directors includes representative from the oil and gas industry has filed lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the reform, according to the The Climate Center.
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Professional Sports Leagues Drop the Ball on Climate Crisis
Big banks, oil giants, and powerful utility companies sponsor pro sports teams and leagues to protect what social scientists call their “social license” by assuring fans that they are public-spirited, good corporate citizens. But they are not that.
Oct 23, 2024
In September, North American professional sports leagues had the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to protecting the planet during a joint panel at Climate Week NYC, the annual affair cosponsored by the United Nations featuring hundreds of events feting local, national and international efforts to address climate change.
They dropped the ball.
Just three months earlier, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres castigated coal, oil and gas companies—which he dubbed the “godfathers of climate chaos”—for spreading disinformation and called for a worldwide ban on fossil fuel advertising. Until that happens, Guterres urged ad agencies to refuse fossil fuel clients and companies to stop taking their ads.
The leagues apparently didn’t get the memo. During their panel discussion, titled Major League Greening, representatives from pro baseball (MLB), basketball (NBA) and hockey mainly talked about their long-term goals to shrink their carbon footprint and, to be sure, they have come a long way since I wrote about their initial efforts to reduce their energy, water and paper use back in 2012. They also talked about their budding alliances with climate solution experts. But there was no talk of cutting their commercial ties with the very companies that are largely responsible for the climate crisis.
A recent survey of pro baseball, basketball, football, hockey and soccer leagues by UCLA’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment found that they collectively have more than 60 sponsorship deals with three dozen oil companies and utilities that burn fossil fuels or distribute fossil gas. Depending on the deal, the companies get prominently placed billboards in team facilities, logos on team uniforms, partnerships with team community programs, or—if they spend some serious money—stadium naming rights.
Eight of the oil and utility companies identified by the UCLA survey—Chevron, Entergy, ExxonMobil, Marathon Petroleum, NextEra Energy, NRG Energy, Phillips 66 and Xcel Energy—are among the top 25 U.S. carbon polluters. Four of those companies—Chevron, ExxonMobil, Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66—along with four other companies with sports sponsorships—ConocoPhillips, Hess, Occidental Petroleum and Shell—have been sued by state and local governments across the United States for climate change-related damage and their decades of deception, which has served to delay the necessary transition to clean energy. ExxonMobil is a defendant in all 39 lawsuits, Chevron has been cited in 28, and Phillips 66 has been named in 21.
Banks that are still investing tens of billions of dollars annually in fossil fuel projects also have sponsorship deals with pro sports teams. Besides routine billboard deals, six of the 12 largest fossil fuel investors since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2016—Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Scotiabank and Wells Fargo—are all spending a small fortune on facility naming rights.
Corporations sponsor sports for two main reasons: to build public trust and increase exposure. According to a 2021 Nielsen “Trust in Advertising” study, 81 percent of consumers completely or somewhat trust brands that sponsor sport teams, second only to the trust they have for friends and family. By sponsoring a team, corporations increase the chance that fans will form the same emotional connection they have with the team with their brand, especially when fans see it repeatedly during a game and over a season. Jersey patches, which the NBA approved in 2017 and MLB approved last year, especially attract attention. Nielsen estimates that the average value of the live broadcast exposure a baseball patch sponsor would receive over a full regular season would exceed $12.4 million.
Another rationale for banks and oil and utility companies for sponsoring pro sports is to protect what social scientists call their “social license” by assuring fans that they are public-spirited, good corporate citizens. Critics call it “sportswashing”—using sports to burnish a reputation tarnished by wrongdoing, in this case, endangering public health and the environment.
Fans of the two baseball teams that battled it out in this year’s National League Championship Series are crying foul, but thus far have been ignored.
In March 2023, environmental activists joined New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to urge the Mets to change the name of Citi Field because Citibank’s parent company Citigroup has invested $396 billion in fossil fuel projects since 2016, second only to JPMorgan Chase’s $430 billion. “Citi doesn’t represent the values of Mets fans or NYC,” Williams wrote in a tweet. “If they refuse to end their toxic relationship with fossil fuels, the Mets should end their partnership with Citi.”
More recently, more than 80 public interest groups, scientists and environmental advocates signed an open letter calling on the Dodgers to cut its ties to Phillips 66, owner of the Union 76 gas station chain. “Using tactics such as associating a beloved, trusted brand like the Dodgers with enterprises like [Union] 76,” the letter states, “the fossil fuel industry has reinforced deceitful messages that ‘oil is our friend,’ and that ‘climate change isn’t so bad.’” Since August, nearly 22,800 people have signed the letter, which urges the team to end its sponsorship deal with the oil company “immediately.”
Unlike the North American pro sports leagues, advertising and public relations agencies worldwide are heeding U.N. Secretary-General Guterres’s call. More than a thousand have pledged to refuse working for fossil fuel companies, their trade associations, and their front groups. If the leagues were serious about sustainability, they likewise would sever their relationships with the godfathers of climate chaos and the banks that enable them.
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Helene and Milton Prove It's Time to Make Polluters Pay for Climate Disasters
Recent polling shows that 70% of US voters support making oil and gas companies pay their fair share for these fossil fuel-driven catastrophes. What are we waiting for?
Oct 10, 2024
“There would be much more violent weather – more storms, more droughts, more deluges.”
That prophecy isn’t from the Book of Revelation, but from a confidential 1989 Shell Oil memo the company commissioned to better understand what global warming could mean for their business in the decades to come.
Today, the sentence reads like a daily weather report. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene, a “deluge” that wiped out entire towns and sent homes and semi-trucks spiraling down rivers of mud, and now Hurricane Milton, one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded. In Nepal, extreme flooding there has claimed over more than 200 lives and left parts of the capitol underwater. Meanwhile, the Amazon is facing its “worst drought on record,” further endangering what scientists have referred to as the “lungs of the world.”
“Civilisation could prove a fragile thing,” wrote the authors of the 1989 Shell memo. Indeed. As we’ve seen over the last few months, even supposed climate havens, like Asheville, NC, have been undone by extreme weather. We’ve entered an age where our civilization, no matter where we live, will likely be in need of constant upkeep and repair in the face of ever worsening climate disasters. Rebuilding our communities, and strengthening them for the challenges ahead, will be an ongoing struggle for generations to come.
For more than 70 years the fossil fuel industry has continued to rake in profits without paying a single dollar for the damage they knew their product was causing to our climate and communities.
Which raises the question: how are we going to pay for all of this? Early estimates put the damage of Hurricane Helene at over $200 billion and Hurricane Milton at $175 billion, astronomical figures that still can’t begin to calculate the cost of the lives lost and communities upended. That’s on top of the more than $150 billion a year the US government estimates Americans are already paying for extreme weather events. And that’s a low end estimate. According to a study released earlier this year in Nature concluded that the cost of climate damages to the global economy could reach $38 trillion a year by 2050.
Right now, those costs are coming out of one place in particular: our pockets. Even if your home hasn’t been washed away by a flood, you’re likely paying more for your home insurance due to others that have. Even if your farm hasn’t been wrecked by drought, you’re now paying more for your groceries at the supermarket. The dollars your town had set aside for a new school? They’re now being spent to rebuild roads or repair a bridge that got wiped out by yet another “100-year” flood.
Faced with these ever mounting costs, some local leaders are turning to a different solution: making polluters pay their fair share for the damage they’ve done. After all, that 1989 Shell memo isn’t the only example that fossil fuel companies knew exactly the consequences of the ongoing use of their product. As early as the 1950s, oil and gas companies knew about the dangers of global warming, but instead of warning the public and moving to clean energy, they went on to spread lies and disinformation to protect their profits.
Put another way, for more than 70 years the fossil fuel industry has continued to rake in profits without paying a single dollar for the damage they knew their product was causing to our climate and communities. Instead, they’ve very intentionally “externalized” those costs onto the rest of us, not only in the form of climate impacts, but in terms of our health, local environments, and more.
Now the bill is coming due. This May, Vermont became the first state in the country to pass a Climate Superfund Act that will make oil and gas companies pay into a fund that can be used for climate adaptation and disaster response. Five other states are debating similar legislation, including in New York, where legislators passed a climate superfund bill in June and are now waiting on Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature (last week, activists delivered more than 127,000 signatures to the Governor’s office demanding she stop dragging her feet and sign the bill into law). In September, Senator Van Hollen and Representative Jerry Nadler introduced a federal Climate Superfund bill that would collect $1 trillion from oil and gas companies to be used for relief and resiliency efforts nationwide.
The push for state and federal climate superfund bills is running in parallel to the now dozens of city, state, county, and Tribal governments who have filed lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry for climate lies and damages. These lawsuits could recoup even more money from oil and gas companies for damages, as well as uncover yet more evidence of their ongoing fraud and deception. In addition to these civil cases, some experts and attorneys are now proposing bringing criminal charges against oil companies for the “wrongful deaths” associated with extreme weather events (expect to hear more about climate homicide in the months ahead).
The devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and similar climate disasters around the world, demands more of a response than the “thoughts and prayers” offered by politicians still in the pocket of Big Oil. Recent polling shows that 70% of US voters support making oil and gas companies pay their fair share for climate damages. It’s time for our leaders to answer that call and make polluters pay.
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Climate Movement Sounds Alarm on Trump Picking 'Big Oil Sellout' JD Vance for VP
"JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that's Trump or the fossil fuel industry," said one Sunrise Movement campaigner. "That makes him dangerous."
Jul 15, 2024
Climate campaigners reacted to former U.S. President Donald Trump's selection of Sen. JD Vance as his running mate Monday by highlighting the Ohio Republican's climate denial and strong support for the fossil fuel industry—one of his top campaign contributors.
"Like Donald Trump, JD Vance has proven that he will make it a top priority to roll back climate protections while answering to the demands of oil and gas CEOs," Sunrise Movement communications director Stevie O'Hanlon said in a statement. "Vance is one of Congress' biggest recipients of donations from oil companies."
"JD Vance not only flip-flopped on supporting Trump, he flip-flopped on climate," she continued. "He went from expressing concern about climate change before running for the Senate, to voting to gut [Environmentl Protection Agency] protections and denying that there even is a climate change crisis."
O'Hanlon added: "JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that's Trump or the fossil fuel industry. That makes him dangerous. Donald Trump was the worst president for climate in U.S. history. JD Vance will empower Donald Trump to enact even worse damage on our planet in a second Trump administration."
Some of Trump's key first-term Cabinet appointees—including Rex Tillerson, his first secretary of state, and Ryan Zinke, who headed the Interior Department—were former fossil fuel executives or had track records of supporting the oil, gas, and coal industries.
Trump's White House tenure was also marked by an
aggressive rollback of climate and environmental regulations and protections.
Food & Water Watch Action deputy director Mitch Jones said that "just like Trump himself, JD Vance is a fossil fuel backer and climate change denier that poses a serious risk to public health and our environment."
"Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance shouldn't be elected to lead our country, the duo represents an existential threat to a livable climate future for all Americans and people around the globe," Jones added.
JL Andrepont of 350 Action asserted that "we are facing a dire need to ward off further climate catastrophe and injustice, so let's be clear: JD Vance is another climate-denying authoritarian who poses massive danger to this country."
"He has praised the horrific Project 2025 plan and said there are 'good ideas in there,'" they continued. "He says he would be totally fine with a federal ban on abortion. And as the effects of climate change accelerate at an alarming pace right in front of our eyes, Vance is a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry who claims that climate change is not a threat."
"We must reject him and all climate deniers at the polls," Andrepont stressed.
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In First, Vermont Ready to Make Fossil Fuel Giants Pay for Climate Damage
"If you contributed to a mess, you should play a role in cleaning it up," said one supporter of a bill that could be a model for other states to follow.
May 09, 2024
This week, Vermont became the nation's first state to pass legislation requiring fossil fuel giants to pay for the damage and disruption caused by their planet-warming products, offering a model for others to follow.
While it remains likely Republican Gov. Phil Scott will veto the bill passed by the state Senate in March and the House on Monday, the legislation—now heading for his desk—was celebrated as a blueprint for others to imitate.
As Vermont Public reported:
Modeled after the federal Superfund program, the policy would require companies like ExxonMobil Corporation and Shell to pay Vermont a share of what climate change has cost the state in recent decades. Vermont would use those payments to establish a program to fund recovery from climate-fueled disasters and work to adapt to the state’s already-changed climate.
Vermont could become the first state in the country to enact such legislation. New York, California, Massachusetts and Maryland are all considering similar bills, as is Congress.
The fossil fuel industry has opposed the measure and vowed legal action if it becomes law. In March, the American Petroleum Institute (API), which represents oil and gas companies, called the legislation "bad policy" and argued that it "may be unconstitutional" for holding corporations responsible for what society at large has done.
Evidence has shown, however, that the fossil fuel industry knew about the climate impacts of burning coal, oil, and gas for decades but hid those understandings from the public as it fought efforts to curb emissions or mitigate the damage being done.
"If you contributed to a mess, you should play a role in cleaning it up," Elena Mihaly, vice-president of the Conservation Law Foundation's Vermont chapter and a supporter of the bill, told The Guardian.
Like many other states, Vermont has suffered expensive damage from climate-related weather events in recent years—costs that proponents of the bill say should not be shouldered by the state alone when it's so clear the fossil fuel industry's role in creating the current crisis.
"You see towns across the state underwater, and communities and businesses financially devastated. The reality of the climate crisis just really comes crashing home," Ben Edgerly Walsh, climate and energy program director for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, told NBC News following passage in the House. "These are facts that we are dealing with in real-time that we need the financial resources to deal with."
If Scott vetoes the bill, the state House and Senate lawmakers would have to muster a two-thirds majority to override his rejection.
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When the Big Oil CEO Blames You for the Climate Crisis His Industry Created
We simply “waited too long,” said ExxonMobil's top executive last week. But never mind, the important thing is that we made “above-average returns.”
Mar 05, 2024
I’m listening to John Coltrane through my headphones as I type, in an effort to stay calm enough that I don’t just start sputtering. You might want to do likewise as you read.
Because last week the CEO of Exxon gave an interview that amounts to an attempt to pawn off the climate crisis on everyone else, and also to map out the road he sees ahead—a road that involves wasting huge amounts of money subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. Darren Woods was talking to Fortune magazine reporter Michal Lev-Ram and editor Alan Murray, who began by explaining that Exxon was a group of charming “Texas tough boys” before teeing up one of the classic softball questions of all time. Some people, he said, were thinking that perhaps Exxon wasn’t entirely “serious about addressing climate change. Tell me why they’re wrong.”
Well, Woods explains, Exxon is a molecule company, by which he means it’s interested in transforming molecules—’and they happen to be hydrogen and carbon molecules’—to ‘address the needs of our society.’ What he’s saying, quite explicitly, is that Exxon is not an electron company, i.e. a company interested in building out wind or solar power. And when Fortune asks him why not, he lets slip the basic truth of our moment: “we don’t see the ability to generate above-average returns for our shareholders.”
For everyone who’s ever asked themselves, why isn’t Exxon (and Chevron and the rest) leading the charge to renewable energy, there’s the answer: you can make money doing it, but not as much as they’ve made traditionally. That’s because the sun and the wind deliver the energy for free, and all you need is some equipment to turn it into electrons. But Exxon controls the molecules—that’s what oil and gas reserves are. And that control means they can make outsize profits—as long as they can persuade the world to keep burning stuff.
And it’s the story of that persuasion where Woods’ words go from galling to really really gross. Because he explains to his nodding interlocutors that the world “waited too long” to start developing renewables. Or, in his particular brand of corporate speak: “we’ve waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets terms of what we need as a society.”
Just to recite the relevant history, as quickly as possible. Forty years ago, Exxon’s scientists learned all there was to know about climate change—they forecasted the temperature in 2020 with remarkable accuracy. And the company’s executives believed them—among other things they began building their drilling rigs higher to compensate for the rise in sea level they knew was coming, and plotting out which corners of the Arctic they would drill once it melted. What they didn’t do was tell the rest of us: instead, they helped erect a huge architecture of deceit and denial and disinformation that kept us locked for three decades in a sterile battle about whether or not global warming was ‘real,’ a fight both sides knew the answer to from the outset. But one side was willing to lie.
Here’s Woods’ predecessor Lee Raymond speaking to a crucial Chinese petroleum congress right before the Kyoto treaty negotiations. After insisting that climate science was dubious at best, and saying he thought the earth was cooling, he added: “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.”
What Woods is saying now is, he was wrong. It mattered a lot. It cost us huge swaths of our planet. We “waited too long.” But never mind, the important thing is that we made “above-average returns.”
To keep those returns coming, Exxon—working mostly through Senator Joe Manchin (D-Pollution)—larded the Inflation Reduction Act, which was supposed to be about electrons, with as many gifts as possible for molecules. That’s what the taxpayer money for carbon capture and other such schemes is all about: a way to keep burning stuff, at a moment when it would be cheaper to just let the sun burn. Remember: Exxon has trillions of dollars in oil and gas reserves. We no longer need it, but they need it—and they can game our political system to keep us using it.
(The fact that something can be too cheap is hard to grasp, but it’s the central insight of a fascinating new book, The Price is Wrong, due out next week from the political economist Brett Christophers. I’ll write more about it in the future but the basic point is that “we cannot expect markets and the private sector to solve the climate crisis while the profits that are their lifeblood remain unappetizing.” The alternative, of course, is to have government handle this basic survival task—but of course government too often remains in the hands of ‘the private sector.’)
Woods’ remarks aren’t the only example of this kind of shamelessness. The coal industry recently released an anti-renewable energy video, for instance, as part of its “Coal Hard Truth” campaign with the catchy title “Not So Fast.” “A global transition to renewable forms of energy is well underway, but are we moving too fast to a future filled with unknown compromises? What are the consequences of rushing to renewables?” The consequences of rushing to renewables are, we chop a degree or two off the eventual temperature of the earth, save millions of people a year who die from breathing the smoke from burning fossil fuels—and cost the coal industry money. Hence the video asking us to “hit pause.”
But it really has been, above all, the Exxon story start to finish. They were the biggest company on earth when we learned about climate change, and they have been the biggest single obstacle to change. The hard-hitting journalists at Fortune, before they got to asking him how he relaxes, queried Woods about “the core, you know, values or aspects of the [Exxon] culture that you feel like are really consistent?”
The thing that “brought me to this company is integrity,” Woods said. “Not just being honest and ethical, but being intellectually honest and saying the hard things.”
Thank God for John Coltrane. Our job is to stay calm enough to keep taking on these gentlemen with all we’ve got, till their political power is broken and we have a fighting chance.
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