{"id":20531,"date":"2020-10-27T22:37:22","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T05:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/?p=20531"},"modified":"2020-12-22T01:28:10","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T09:28:10","slug":"washingtons-big-league-of-rank-hypocrisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/washingtons-big-league-of-rank-hypocrisy\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington\u2019s Big League of Rank Hypocrisy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A guest post by Elliott Negin, with Intro by Skip Kaltenheuser (Oct. 28, 2020)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Nero
Nero Lives by Nancy Ohanian<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You might already know Elliott Negin, whose writings I worked into with Dance with the One that Brought You \u2014 BERNIE!<\/a> on NPR\u2019s red-baiting of Bernie, and Scott Pruitt\u2019s Doublespeak Clarifies Him<\/a>, on yet another disastrous industrial strength Trump appointee hellbent on ransacking the environment. If not, it’s never too late. You can catch other writings by Elliott at the Union of Concerned Scientists<\/a>, where Elliott is a senior writer, and at a number of other publications including The Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elliott\u2019s guest post below underscores that corporate behemoth Exon-Mobile, the world\u2019s fourth-largest oil company and largest that is investor-owned, takes top honors among the world\u2019s phonies. While its public relations people now fret about climate change and claim support for the Paris climate agreement, it continues to pour money into outfits that undermine public awareness of man\u2019s role in global warming and that derail efforts to regulate energy and the environment. While claiming to support a carbon tax, it greases climate denying legislators who oppose it. Does Exxon-Mobil have any connections to the Dark Money sloshing about Washington? Who knows, but I\u2019d bet on it. Recall that Exxon\u2019s scientists warned its executives about the critical impacts of man-made climate change over forty years ago<\/a> and that their scientists have since been cutting edge in climate science, their knowledge just not shared with the public.<\/p>\n

No one is short on cynicism these days, but it\u2019s worth considering such corporate phonies now, as Amy Coney Barrett is catapulted onto the Supreme Court with an irrevocable corporate fix. Her father was a lawyer for Shell Oil for decades and a major player in the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying entity for 600 oil and gas corporations. Why focus on a parent? Because when Barrett was asked about climate change her reply, given while swaths of the American West were aflame, was that she had \u201cno firm views\u201d and couldn\u2019t “offer any kind of informed opinion\u201d on the causes of global warming. Most fourth-graders could best that know-nothing answer. So it sounds like Barrett will be another oil and gas tentacle, at a time the API and affiliates, including Shell, have a lot of skin in the game in cases coming before the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Elliott describes other tentacles below. \u2014 Skip Kaltenheuser<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

ExxonMobil Claims Shift on Climate But Continues to Fund Climate Science Deniers<\/strong><\/a><\/span>
\nCourtesy of Elliott Negin<\/a>, senior writer<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

After decades of public denial, ExxonMobil now\u00a0acknowledges<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe risk of climate change is real\u201d and says it is \u201ccommitted to being part of the solution,\u201d at least according to the company\u2019s website and statements. To that end, the largest investor-owned oil company in the world claims it\u00a0supports a federal carbon tax<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Paris climate agreement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the company\u2019s recently released\u00a0grantmaking report<\/a>\u00a0shows that it has not ended its two-decade-long campaign to stymie government efforts to address climate change. By ExxonMobil\u2019s own accounting, it gave $690,000 to eight climate science denier groups in 2019, a 10 percent drop from 2018. In addition, it continued to fund federal lawmakers who oppose a carbon tax, despite its supposed longtime support for the idea. Forty percent of the nearly\u00a0$1 million<\/a>\u00a0it has contributed so far to congressional incumbent campaigns during the 2019-20 election cycle has gone to 115 of the\u00a0150 climate science deniers<\/a>\u00a0still in office.<\/p>\n

Sixty percent of ExxonMobil\u2019s 2019 donations to climate obstructionist groups for \u201cpublic information and policy research\u201d went to the US Chamber of Commerce, while another 30 percent was split between the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute, which have been receiving annual grants from the company since it began financing climate disinformation 22 years ago. All told, ExxonMobil has spent more than\u00a0$37 million<\/a>\u00a0on climate science denier organizations from 1998 through 2019, more than any individual funder besides Charles Koch and his brother, the late David Koch, the billionaire owners of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries. Koch-controlled foundations spent more than\u00a0$145 million<\/a>\u00a0on many of the same groups over roughly the same time period.<\/p>\n

Did the top three recipients of ExxonMobil grants for climate science denier groups in 2019 toe the company\u2019s publicly stated line on climate? The short answer is no. If actions speak louder than words, the donations call into question ExxonMobil\u2019s commitment to seriously address the climate crisis and deserve a closer look.<\/p>\n

The US Chamber still opposes carbon pollution standards<\/h4>\n

The US Chamber of Commerce has been a major player in blocking action on climate change going back to the 1990s, when the business lobby and Exxon were members of the\u00a0Global Climate Coalition<\/a>, a consortium of corporations and trade associations opposed to government policies that would cut carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

But in 2009 \u2014 the same year ExxonMobil first\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0its support for a carbon tax in a cynical attempt to derail cap-and-trade climate legislation \u2014 the Chamber\u2019s united front began to crack. A handful of Fortune 500 companies \u2014 including Apple, Exelon Corporation and Pacific Gas & Electric \u2014\u00a0quit<\/a>\u00a0the Chamber over its opposition to the cap-and-trade bill while two other high-profile companies \u2014 Nike and Johnson & Johnson \u2014 retained their membership but\u00a0rebuked the<\/a>\u00a0business lobby<\/a>\u00a0for the same reason. Since then,\u00a0at least a dozen<\/a>\u00a0Chamber members, including Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, Mars, Nestl\u00e9 and Unilever, have headed for the exits.<\/p>\n

By contrast, ExxonMobil not only retained its Chamber membership, but it also pledged $5 million in annual installments to help pay for the Chamber\u2019s\u00a0$250-million renovation<\/a>\u00a0of its Washington, D.C., headquarters. In 2019, the company donated\u00a0$400,000 for the building\u00a0<\/a>rehabilitation<\/a>\u00a0and another $15,000\u00a0<\/a>to the Chamber\u2019s Corporate Citizenship Center, bringing its total contributions since 2014 to $4.8 million.<\/p>\n

What does ExxonMobil get for its money? Among other things, the\u00a0business lobby<\/a>\u00a0goes to bat for it in court by\u00a0filing lawsuits<\/a> against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and in the court of public opinion by funding misleading climate-related reports. A prime example is the Chamber\u2019s widely<\/a>\u00a0debunked 2017\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0that grossly\u00a0exaggerated the cost<\/a>\u00a0to the US economy of complying with the Paris climate agreement. President Donald Trump cited that report as his\u00a0primary rationale<\/a>\u00a0for ignoring the US commitment to the accord, and he has vowed to officially pull the United States out in early November.<\/p>\n

However, in 2019, the Chamber seemed to take a 180-degree turn,\u00a0declaring<\/a>\u00a0on its website: \u201cOur climate is changing and humans are contributing to these changes. Inaction is simply not an option.\u201d Although one could quibble with the assertion that human activity is merely\u00a0contributing<\/em>\u00a0to climate change when in fact burning fossil fuels is the main cause, it was a far cry from when the organization\u00a0maintained<\/a>\u00a0in comments submitted to the EPA in 2009 that \u201ca warming of even 3 [degrees Celsius] in the next 100 years would, on balance, be beneficial to humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Chamber\u2019s turnabout was not complete. Although it now concedes the reality of human-caused climate change, it is still pushing private-sector innovation as the solution to the climate crisis rather than much-needed government regulation, which historically has driven technological advances.<\/p>\n

So, while the Chamber supports government funding for\u00a0research and development<\/a>\u00a0of advanced nuclear reactors, utility-scale batteries, and carbon capture and storage technology, it backed the Trump administration\u2019s\u00a0rollbacks<\/a>\u00a0of the Obama administration\u2019s 2015 Clean Power Plan, which would have reduced power plant carbon emissions, and its 2015 \u201cWaters of the United States\u201d rule, which would have protected small streams, wetlands and groundwater from toxic chemicals.<\/p>\n

More recently, the Chamber supported the Trump administration\u2019s weakening of the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act by limiting public input in the infrastructure project approval process and rescinding a requirement that federal agencies consider a proposed project\u2019s impact on the climate.<\/p>\n

Unlike ExxonMobil\u2019s professed support for a carbon tax, the Chamber has\u00a0no official position<\/a>, but if carbon tax legislation ever made it to the Senate or House floor, it presumably would oppose it given its dim view of government regulation.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the Chamber\u2019s avowed support for US compliance with the Paris climate accord includes a major caveat. Dan Byers, vice president for policy at the Chamber\u2019s Global Energy Institute,\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Politico<\/em>\u00a0in August 2019 that it is \u201cabsolutely important for the US to remain in the Paris climate agreement\u201d but added that the \u201cObama administration\u2019s pledge was unrealistic, [and] was going to have a negative impact on our economy. And so we\u2019d like to see that revisited.\u201d In other words, the Chamber would like the United States to remain a party to the agreement so that it could lobby to weaken the US commitment to it.<\/p>\n

American Enterprise Institute still downplays the climate threat<\/h4>\n

In 2019, ExxonMobil gave the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)\u00a0$110,000<\/a>, bringing its total since 1998 to $4.76 million \u2014 more than any other of its climate science denier grantees. The 82-year-old, free market think tank also receives generous funding from other climate disinformation network supporters, including the\u00a0Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Charles Koch Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What does ExxonMobil get for its money from AEI? A cheerleader for fossil fuels, economist Benjamin Zycher, who \u2014 contrary to the company\u2019s professed climate positions \u2014\u00a0argues<\/a>\u00a0that a carbon tax would be \u201cineffective\u201d and has\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0the Paris agreement an \u201cabsurdity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, Zycher published a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0arguing that \u201cany plausible policy\u201d to curb carbon emissions \u201cwould yield trivial effects while imposing large costs.\u201d Instead, he recommended the federal government adopt a policy of \u201cwatchful waiting, adaptation over time, and ongoing investment in resilience against the future effects of climactic [sic] changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

How could Zycher recommend \u201cwatchful waiting\u201d given the large costs climate change is already imposing right now? Granted, he published his report before this summer, when heat waves and wildfires burned up the West Coast and hurricanes slammed the Southeast. But last summer was not that different, and climate change-related disasters have been racking up considerable damage over the last few years. From 2017 through 2019, there were\u00a044<\/a>\u00a0unique extreme weather and climate-linked events across the country causing damages of $1 billion or more, collectively costing more than\u00a0$460 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Zycher insists fossil fuels are\u00a0indispensable<\/a>. \u201cOpposition to fossil fuels implies a reduction in policies \u2014 education, training, health care, and the like \u2014 that add to human capital and so increase incomes and the demand for conventional energy,\u201d he wrote. \u201cTherefore, opposition to fossil fuels is fundamentally antihuman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zycher made the\u00a0same argument<\/a>\u00a0in a May 7 column in the\u00a0Financial Times<\/em>, ranting that environmentalists who aim to deprive the world of fossil fuels \u201chate humanity, and the planet too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putting aside Zycher\u2019s ad hominem attack on the \u201cenvironmental left,\u201d he deliberately confuses the societal benefits of energy with how it is generated. At several junctures in history, humans switched from wood to coal to natural gas to warm their homes. Likewise, they switched from whale oil to kerosene to incandescents to LEDs to illuminate their homes.<\/p>\n

Opposition to coal and kerosene in the past or fossil fuels today is not \u201cfundamentally antihuman\u201d when there are better, cleaner alternatives. And it turns out the alternatives \u2014 solar and wind, specifically \u2014 are now the\u00a0cheapest sources of electricity<\/a>, and they could have been more widely available years ago if ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies had not stood in the way.<\/p>\n

The Manhattan Institute is still in love with fossil fuels<\/h4>\n

The Manhattan Institute, a New York City-based libertarian think tank, received\u00a0$90,000<\/a>\u00a0from ExxonMobil in 2019. Since 1998, the company has given the organization more than $1.4 million.<\/p>\n

For the last decade, the institute\u2019s go-to energy expert has been Robert Bryce, who, like AEI\u2019s Zycher, is\u00a0no fan of a carbon tax<\/a>, ExxonMobil\u2019s supposed pet climate solution. Before he left the think tank at the end of 2019, Bryce spent much of his time bashing renewable energy and extolling fossil fuels in reports and in the pages of the\u00a0National Review<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0New York Post<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and other publications.<\/p>\n

Bryce routinely disparages renewables without providing context. In an August 2019 column on the conservative website\u00a0RealClearEnergy<\/em>, for example, he\u00a0maintained<\/a>\u00a0that the wind industry is \u201cfacing increasing opposition\u201d at least partly because of what he insists is the major threat it poses to eagles and other birds, an assertion he has been making ad nauseum for years. In fact, the\u00a0top human-caused threats<\/a>\u00a0to birds are\u00a0climate change<\/a>,\u00a0buildings<\/a>, power lines, misapplied pesticides, communications towers, and oil and gas industry fluid waste pits \u2014 not wind turbines.<\/p>\n

As for wind energy\u2019s specific threat to eagles, Dan Ashe, a former director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, debunked Bryce\u2019s fallacious claim in a December 2016\u00a0HuffPost<\/em>\u00a0column. \u201cPublic attention on eagle loss in recent years has focused almost exclusively on wind energy,\u201d Ashe\u00a0wrote<\/a>. \u201cIn truth, wind turbine collisions comprise a fraction of human-caused eagle losses. Most result from intentional and accidental poisoning and purposeful shooting. The majority of non-intentional loss occurs when eagles collide with cars or ingest lead shot or bullet fragments in remains and gut piles left by hunters. Others collide with or are electrocuted on power lines. Disproportionately and solely focusing on wind energy distorts public perceptions at a time when we desperately need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cutting carbon pollution is hardly a goal that Bryce or any of his Manhattan Institute colleagues would ever publicly endorse. Doing so would certainly not please their other climate science denier benefactors, which include the\u00a0Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation<\/a>,\u00a0Charles Koch Foundation<\/a>, hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer\u2019s\u00a0Mercer Family Foundation<\/a>, and Mercer\u2019s daughter, Rebekah, a\u00a0Manhattan Institute trustee<\/a>. All have donated considerably more money to the think tank than ExxonMobil in recent years and, unlike the oil company, do not pretend to care about the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

Maintaining the status quo in Congress<\/h4>\n

The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>recently ran a\u00a0story<\/a>\u00a0pointing out that European and US oil companies are heading in very different directions when it comes to climate change. While BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and other European-based companies are beginning to sell their oil fields and invest in renewable energy, their US counterparts\u00a0Chevron<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0ExxonMobil<\/a>\u00a0are betting that oil and gas will continue to make up at least 50 percent of the energy market for at least the next 20 years.<\/p>\n

Instead of transitioning to solar and wind, the two US oil giants are spending\u00a0relatively trivial amounts<\/a>\u00a0on unproven technologies, such as\u00a0modular fusion nuclear reactors (Chevron)<\/a>,\u00a0algae-based biofuel (ExxonMobil)<\/a>, and carbon capture and storage schemes (both), which so far have been\u00a0costly failures<\/a>. If those pipe dreams were ever demonstrated to work at the necessary scale, it would still take decades to commercialize them.<\/p>\n

The main reason European oil and gas companies are taking baby steps to embrace renewables? Government pressure. The European Union has\u00a0set a goal<\/a>\u00a0of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and\u00a0seven EU countries<\/a>\u00a0plan to phase out vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel over the next few decades. Austria, with the most aggressive timetable, will ban internal-combustion-engine\u00a0vehicle sales after 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although California\u00a0recently announced<\/a>\u00a0it would ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035 and most diesel-powered trucks by 2045, the Trump administration has taken the\u00a0opposite tack<\/a>, gutting landmark Obama-era rules curbing vehicle and power plant carbon emissions, rolling back methane emission and coal ash storage regulations, and lifting bans on oil and gas drilling on public land. Congress, meanwhile, has declined to consider\u00a0climate bills<\/a>\u00a0that have been introduced since the beginning of the 2019-20 session.<\/p>\n

The September 21\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0story<\/a>\u00a0cited unnamed energy analysts who excused Chevron and ExxonMobil for not changing their business models. \u201cUS lawmakers,\u201d the analysts told the\u00a0Times<\/em>, \u201chave simply not given them enough incentives to make a radical break.\u201d<\/p>\n

A major reason Congress has not given the US oil industry enough incentives to change course is because oil and gas companies have been giving a critical mass of US lawmakers enough incentives to do nothing. As mentioned above, $401,198 of the $991,329 ExxonMobil has spent so far on congressional incumbent campaigns during the current election cycle has gone to 115 of the 150 climate science deniers on Capitol Hill. Likewise, Chevron has spent\u00a0$936,489<\/a>\u00a0on incumbent campaigns so far. A little more than $433,000 \u2014 46 percent \u2014 has gone to 82 climate science deniers.<\/p>\n

Besides making campaign contributions, oil companies spend a lot of money to keep tabs on their friends in Washington. So far, the top\u00a0three oil and gas lobbyists<\/a>\u00a0during the 2019-20 cycle are Koch Industries, which has spent $30.72 million; Chevron, which has spent $28.54 million; and ExxonMobil, which has spent $28.36 million.<\/p>\n

Why does ExxonMobil still support so many climate science deniers in Congress while contending to be so keen on a carbon tax? After all, just two years ago the company announced it would\u00a0donate $1 million<\/a>\u00a0over two years to\u00a0Americans for Carbon Dividends<\/a>, a political action group created to promote a revenue-neutral carbon tax.<\/p>\n

Some lawmakers are bullish on a carbon tax, but ExxonMobil largely ignores them. Since January 2019,\u00a0eight representatives<\/a>, two Republicans and six Democrats \u2014 and\u00a0nine senators<\/a>, all Democrats \u2014 have introduced\u00a010 carbon tax bills and one cap-and-trade bill<\/a>. But only one of the eight representatives and four of the nine senators received a campaign contribution from ExxonMobil during this election cycle. The total amount the company donated to the five lawmakers was $15,000 \u2014 a measly 4 percent of what it gave climate science deniers.<\/p>\n

To be sure, ExxonMobil\u2019s spending on climate disinformation has shrunk dramatically in recent years. The company\u2019s 2019 outlay was less than\u00a0half<\/a>\u00a0of what it\u00a0spent in 2017<\/a>\u00a0and the lowest amount since 1999, when Exxon was going through its merger with Mobil. Likewise, its campaign contributions to climate science deniers in Congress dropped from\u00a0$1.1 million<\/a>\u00a0during the 2017-18 election cycle to only $400,000, this cycle.<\/p>\n

But the fact remains that, while the company is saying all the right things publicly about the need to address climate change, it is continuing to fund think tanks and lawmakers who dispute the science and oppose government action. That suggests that its professed support for a carbon tax is no more than a disingenuous public relations ploy to delay government action.<\/p>\n

The tobacco industry used the very same tactic to hold off regulations for decades, and it worked well until it didn\u2019t, when the industry lost in court and agreed to pay\u00a0$246 billion<\/a>\u00a0in fines to states over 25 years.<\/p>\n

\"Oil
Oil Can Harry by Nancy Ohanian<\/span><\/center><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Author\u2019s note: Besides the US Chamber of Commerce ($415,000), American Enterprise Institute ($110,000) and Manhattan Institute ($90,000), ExxonMobil\u00a0<\/em>gave grants in 2019<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to five other climate science denier groups: Center for American and International Law ($5,000), Federalist Society ($10,000), Hoover Institution ($15,000), Mountain States Legal Foundation ($5,000) and the Washington Legal Foundation ($40,000). For an overview of ExxonMobil\u2019s grants from 1998 through 2019, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article, which was originally\u00a0published by Truthout<\/a>, was produced by\u00a0<\/em>Earth | Food | Life<\/em><\/a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(A guest post by Elliott Negin, with Intro by Skip Kaltenheuser)
\nYou might already know Elliott Negin, whose writings I worked into with Dance with the One that Brought You \u2014 BERNIE! on NPR\u2019s red-baiting of Bernie, and Scott Pruitt\u2019s Doublespeak Clarifies Him, on yet another disastrous industrial strength Trump appointee hellbent on ransacking the environment. 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