Climate activists rally to urge politicians to stand against climate denial on Jan. 9, 2017 in New York. DON EMMERT / AFP via Getty Images
The attorney general for Washington, DC filed a lawsuit on Thursday against four of the largest energy companies, claiming that the companies have spent millions upon millions of dollars to deceive customers in about the calamitous effect fossil fuel extraction and emissions is having on the climate crisis, according to The Washington Post.
<p><br/></p>
<p>The suit names ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Chevron as the defendants, and argues that the companies "systematically and intentionally misled consumers in Washington, DC ... about the central role their products play in causing climate change," according to The Hill.</p><p>Karl A. Racine, the DC attorney general, said in a news conference on Thursday that the four companies painted a false picture of what effect their products had and therefore violated consumer protection laws.</p><p>"For decades, these oil and gas companies spent millions to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of profits," Racine said in a <a href="https://oag.dc.gov/release/prepared-remarks-exxon-mobilbpchevronshell-lawsuit" target="_blank">statement</a>, as <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/dc-sues-exxonmobil-and-other-companies-deceiving-public-about-product-harm" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported. "OAG filed this suit to end these disinformation campaigns and to hold these companies accountable for their deceptive practices."</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/exxonmobil-climate-lawsuit-2641328126.html" target="_self">New York</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/massachusetts-sues-exxon-mobil-2641105588.html" target="_self">Massachusetts</a> have both sued ExxonMobil for fraud related to the climate crisis, though New York lost its case against the energy giant. California and Baltimore have filed similar suits. On Wednesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ExxonKochAPI_Complaint.pdf" target="_blank">complaint</a> in state court accusing ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Flint Hills Resources and the American Petroleum Institute of consumer fraud, failure to warn, deceptive trade practices, and fraud and false advertising, as <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/minnesota-sues-oil-giants-over-climate-change-effects/amp/" target="_blank">Courthouse News</a> reported.</p><p>Ellison's complaint said that Minnesota was already feeling the effects from the climate crisis as droughts, flooding and crop failures have damaged the state's economy. That has all happened while the companies named in the suit invested in public relations campaigns that denied the climate crisis and even promoted increased CO2 as a solution to world hunger, according to <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/minnesota-sues-oil-giants-over-climate-change-effects/amp/" target="_blank">Courthouse News</a>.</p><p>"Impacts from climate change hurt our low-income residents and communities of color first and worst. The impacts on farmers in our agricultural state are widespread as well," Ellison said in a statement. "Holding these companies accountable for the climate deception they've spread and continue to spread is essential to helping families to afford their lives and live with dignity and respect."</p>
<p>The two suits drew praise from environmental activists and the science community.</p><p>In a statement Thursday, Greenpeace USA climate campaign director Janet Redman said, "<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-denier">Climate denial</a> is not a victimless crime. Now, one by one states and local governments are stepping up to hold the perpetrators accountable," as <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/25/dc-sues-fossil-fuel-giants-decades-spending-millions-mislead-consumers-and-discredit" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a> reported. "Just yesterday it was Minnesota Attorney General Ellison standing up to big oil, today it's D.C. Attorney General Racine."</p>
<p>The Union of Concerned Scientists also issued a <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/dc-sues-exxonmobil-and-other-companies-deceiving-public-about-product-harm" target="_blank">statement</a> noting that the fossil fuel industry long knew about the devastating impacts of burning fossil fuels, but followed the Big Tobacco playbook and waged a disinformation campaign.</p><p>"When scientists, including some employed by ExxonMobil, warned that burning fossil fuels could catastrophically alter the climate, ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell funded decades-long disinformation campaigns designed to undermine climate science, while simultaneously unleashing an army of lobbyists to block state and federal policies that sought to limit global warming emissions to protect communities across the country," said Rachel Licker, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in a <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/dc-sues-exxonmobil-and-other-companies-deceiving-public-about-product-harm" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p><p>"As a result, the nation's capital and communities across the country and world now have to battle worsening floods, heat waves, wildfires and many other avoidable climate impacts," she added.</p>
<p>In the DC suit, Racine specifically mentioned the fossil fuel companies' strategy lifted from Big Tobacco. "The companies not only employed the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition — a fake grassroots citizen group created by Big Tobacco as part of the industry's misinformation campaign — they also funded and promoted some of the same scientists hired by tobacco companies," he said in a <a href="https://oag.dc.gov/release/prepared-remarks-exxon-mobilbpchevronshell-lawsuit" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p><p>The lawsuit also alleges that the companies have recently exaggerated their investments and commitments to renewable energy.</p><p>"Defendants have shifted their advertising strategies to mislead DC consumers into believing that buying Defendants' products supports companies committed to reducing and reversing the effects of climate change," the lawsuit asserts, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/dc-attorney-general-sues-oil-and-gas-companies-alleging-industry-misled-public-about-climate-change/2020/06/25/7b633584-b705-11ea-a8da-693df3d7674a_story.html" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported. "In fact, the opposite is true."</p>
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Fisherman push their boat during low tide on oily mud in the river at Ogoniland's village of K-Dere, near Bodo, which is part of the Niger Delta region, on Feb. 20, 2019. Decades of oil spills has left the Ogoniland region in southern Nigeria an environmental disaster zone — but now hopes are high of a rebirth of farming, fishing and clean water. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP / Getty Images
By Jenna McGuire
In 2011, a ground-breaking report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on oil pollution in Ogoniland highlighted the devastating impact of the oil industry in the Niger Delta and made concrete recommendations for clean-up measures and immediate support for the region's devastated communities.
<p>Now, nearly ten years later, a new <a href="http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/extractive_industries/2020/no_clean-up_no_justice_final.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> published Thursday by Friends of the Earth Europe, Amnesty International, ERA and Milieudefensie, details Shell's failure to implement the "emergency measures" laid out by UNEP and says only 11 percent of contaminated areas in the Niger Delta have begun the clean-up process.</p>
<p>Titled "No Clean-Up, No Justice," the new report explains that for "more than five decades, the people of Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta, have struggled against oil pollution, destruction of the environment and human rights violations." </p><p>According to estimates, Shell Oil has <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/new-report-details-how-fossil-fuel-industrys-climate-destruction-also-exacerbates" target="_blank">dumped</a> an estimated nine to 13 million barrels of crude oil into the Niger Delta since 1958.</p><p>"Oil and gas extraction has caused large-scale, continued contamination of the water and soil in Ogoni communities," <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/06/18/shells-oil-pollution-niger-delta-people-sick-waiting-justice" target="_blank">said</a> Friends of the Earth in a statement. "The continued and systematic failure of oil companies and government to clean up have left hundreds of thousands of Ogoni people facing serious health risks, struggling to access safe drinking water, and unable to earn a living."</p>
<p>As Common Dreams <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/new-report-details-how-fossil-fuel-industrys-climate-destruction-also-exacerbates" target="_blank">reported</a> earlier this year, the local government has also worked with Shell to suppress the right of people in Ogoniland to fight against pollution.</p><p>"The discovery of oil in Ogoniland has brought huge suffering for its people," said Osai Ojigho of Amnesty International Nigeria. "Over many years we have documented how Shell has failed to clean up contamination from spills and it's a scandal that this has not yet happened."<br><br>The ecological damage, Ojigho added, "is leading to serious human rights impacts — on people's health and ability to access food and clean water. Shell must not get away with this — we will continue to fight until every last trace of oil is removed from Ogoniland."</p>
<p>Almost a full decade after the UNEP findings, the new report concluded that:</p><ul> <li>Work has begun on only 11 pecent of polluted sites identified by UNEP, with only a further 5 percent included in current clean-up efforts, and no site has been entirely cleaned up;</li></ul><ul> <li>Actions classified by UNEP as "emergency measures" - immediate action on drinking water and health protection - have not been implemented properly; there are still communities without access to clean water supplies;</li></ul><ul> <li>Health and environmental monitoring has not been carried out;</li></ul><ul> <li>There has not been any public accounting for how the 31 million USD funding provided since 2018 has been spent;</li></ul><ul> <li>11 of 16 companies contracted for the clean-up are reported to have no registered expertise in oil pollution remediation or related areas;</li></ul><ul><li>HYPREP has numerous conflicts of interest as Shell continues to be involved in the governing boards for the clean-up and even places its own staff in HYPREP.</li></ul><p>The report also lays out a set of demands for a rapid clean-up and funding for regional recovery, with chief responsibility for that effort aimed at the Nigerian government, Shell, and other governments — mostly in Europe — home to other major oil companies operating in the Niger Delta.</p><p>"After nine years of promises without proper action and decades of pollution, the people of Ogoniland are not only sick of dirty drinking water, oil-contaminated fish and toxic fumes," said Godwin Ojo of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria.<br><br>"They are sick of waiting for justice," Ojo added. "They are dying by the day."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/19/shell-must-not-get-away-niger-delta-still-waiting-big-oil-clean-devastating" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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A general view of BP (British Petroleum) refinery in the Port of Rotterdam on April 23, 2020 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Dean Mouhtaropoulos / Getty Images
Fossil fuel giant BP made headlines earlier this year when it announced it would target net zero emissions by 2050. Now, it is in the headlines again, since it announced on Monday that it would slash 10,000 jobs, roughly 15 percent of its workforce, as it struggles during a downturn in the oil market and transitions its practices towards renewable energy, as CNN reported.
<p>In an email to staff on Monday that was also <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reinventing-bp-next-steps-bernard-looney/?trackingId=h8FmFLmIQ7mh3i9%2BTbC29w%3D%3D&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosgenerate&stream=top" target="_blank">published on LinkedIn</a>, BP CEO Bernard Looney announced the layoffs, which mostly affect senior office-based positions and not front-line operational staff. He called it part of some "tough decisions" but said that "we must do the right thing for bp and this is that right thing," as <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/bp-ceo-calls-plan-to-lay-off-10-000-workers-the-right-t-1843954641" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a> reported.</p><p>BP currently employs 70,100 people. "We will now begin a process that will see close to 10,000 people leaving BP – most by the end of this year," Looney said in a statement, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bp-jobs-exclusive/exclusive-bp-to-cut-15-of-workforce-sources-idUSKBN23F1D9" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported.</p>
<p>BP also said it will not give any raises to senior executives this year and it will not hand out any cash bonuses. Like all the world's top energy companies, BP has cut its 2020 spending plans after the coronavirus pandemic brought an unprecedented drop in demand for oil, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bp-jobs-exclusive/exclusive-bp-to-cut-15-of-workforce-sources-idUSKBN23F1D9" target="_blank">Reuters</a>.</p><p>In his <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reinventing-bp-next-steps-bernard-looney/?trackingId=h8FmFLmIQ7mh3i9%2BTbC29w%3D%3D&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosgenerate&stream=top" target="_blank">email to staff</a>, Looney said: "The oil price has plunged well below the level we need to turn a profit. We are spending much, much more than we make - I am talking millions of dollars, every day," as the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-52966609" target="_blank">BBC</a> reported.</p><p>"It was always part of the plan to make BP a leaner, faster-moving and lower carbon company," wrote Looney. "Then the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. You are already aware that, beyond the clear human tragedy, there has been widespread economic fallout, along with consequences for our industry and our company."</p>
<p>The price of crude oil fell precipitously this year. It started the year at $66 per barrel, but dropped below $20 during the pandemic and has now inched its way up to $42 barrel. That slow recovery in the price and the continued low demand for oil means the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuel</a> industry is losing money hand over fist, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/business/bp-job-cuts/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>.</p><p>The drop in oil prices has accelerated the push toward renewable energy sources, Looney said on Monday, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/business/bp-job-cuts/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. "To me, the broader economic picture and our own financial position just reaffirm the need to reinvent [BP]," Looney wrote in his note to employees. "While the external environment is driving us to move faster — and perhaps go deeper at this stage than we originally intended — the direction of travel remains the same."</p>
<p>Prior to the coronavirus, demand for oil was expected to peak around 2040 due to the rise of electric cars, increased energy efficiency and a switch to alternative sources. That combination puts pressure on energy companies to decrease their reliance on fossil fuels. BP started out ahead in that department, having committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions from its global operations, as well as emissions that result from the oil and gas it produces, to net zero by 2050. BP wants to halve the carbon intensity of the products it sells by 2050, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/business/bp-job-cuts/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>The drop in demand has affected other companies, too. Chevron Corp, the second-largest U.S. oil producer, said that it would cut between 10 and 15 percent of its global workforce as part of an ongoing restructuring, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bp-jobs-exclusive/exclusive-bp-to-cut-15-of-workforce-sources-idUSKBN23F1D9" target="_blank">Reuters</a>. Also, Royal Dutch Shell cut its dividend and started a layoff process.</p>
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A woman wearing a protective mask walks her dog past a gas station amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 21 in New York City, Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images
By Eoin Higgins
Sen. Bernie Sanders was among critics outraged that the fossil fuel industry is using tax breaks in the CARES Act meant to help businesses keep workers employed to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes — and then delivering that money to executives.
<p>"Good thing President Trump is looking out for the real victims of the coronavirus: fossil fuel executives," Sanders tweeted sarcastically Friday.</p>
<div id="bc2f8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="904244ece7b166b288ef24f4dcd5d829"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1261353825094549506" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Coronavirus has killed more than 85,000 people. Some 36 million workers have lost their jobs. Good thing President… https://t.co/53JsMguSMT</div> — Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders)<a href="https://twitter.com/SenSanders/statuses/1261353825094549506">1589565161.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Reporting Friday from Bloomberg News <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-15/-stealth-bailout-shovels-millions-of-dollars-to-oil-companies" target="_blank">showed</a> that "$1.9 billion in CARES Act tax benefits are being claimed by at least 37 oil companies, service firms, and contractors" — what watchdog group Documented senior researcher Jesse Coleman described as a "stealth bailout" of the climate-killing industry.</p><p>"In the name of 'small business,' we're shoveling out billions of dollars to big corporations and rich guys," Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told <em>Bloomberg</em>.</p>
<p>Bloomberg used the example of how Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. manipulated the bailout to explain the tax scheme:</p><blockquote>As it <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-26/diamond-offshore-files-for-bankruptcy-amid-historic-crude-crash-k9hfegfh" target="_blank">headed toward</a> bankruptcy, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/DOFSQ:US" target="_blank">Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc.</a> took advantage of a little-noticed provision in the stimulus bill <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/0248133Z:US" target="_blank">Congress</a> passed in March to get a $9.7 million tax refund. Then, it <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/terminal/Q9TKZ0DWLU69" target="_blank">asked a bankruptcy judge</a> to authorize the same amount as bonuses to nine executives.<br></blockquote><p>According to Bloomberg's reporting, Diamond's refund pales in comparison to some of its larger competitors, "including $55 million for Denver-based <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/AM:US" target="_blank">Antero Midstream Corp.</a>, $41.2 million for supplier <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/OIS:US" target="_blank">Oil States International Inc.</a> and $96 million for Oklahoma-based producer <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/DVN:US" target="_blank">Devon Energy Corp</a>."</p>
<div id="310e7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9e8434fba6442af10c694580f8ac7a22"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1261293784387772416" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">OIL CAPITALISM -- Diamond Offshore takes $9.7m from American taxpayers, then earmarks the same amount to execs as b… https://t.co/0P0eDOTCvO</div> — Kevin Crowley (@Kevin Crowley)<a href="https://twitter.com/CrowleyKev/statuses/1261293784387772416">1589550846.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The fossil fuel industry was already in financial trouble before the outbreak, which has effectively crippled Big Oil's ability to make money — even with the generous subsidies given by the federal government. Access to bailout tax break funding is helping fossil fuel companies prosper, along with other climate-destroying industries like mining companies, which have also reaped millions from coronavirus relief legislation. </p><p>"The Trump administration's favor factory hasn't stopped with a global pandemic," Accountable U.S. spokesperson Jayson O'Neill said in a statement Friday. "As millions of jobs <a href="https://act.myngp.com/el/NNe9rBdrJeeN3RQ36Wh73G89VGE1NNSyYG_6gVF5hhU=/Ev9zD4WLPn--xfOGpN_FaBID9-fsxnkfm6L6gL044rw=" target="_blank">disappear</a> week after week, the Trump administration is prioritizing aid for wealthy, well-connected corporations before small businesses."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/16/big-oil-taking-19-billion-cares-act-tax-breaks-aimed-helping-small-businesses" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette says that Secretary Steven Mnuchin, pictured, worked with the Federal Reserve to bail out mid-size oil companies.
Two top administration officials, at the direction of President Trump, helped the Federal Reserve alter its lending program intended to bail out small businesses specifically to aid mid-size oil companies, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told Bloomberg TV this week.
<p>"Secretary Mnuchin worked very closely with the Federal Reserve ... and made that program available to what we refer to as mid-cap-sized companies," Brouillette said Tuesday. The Fed, which is legally prohibited from targeting specific sectors for relief, denied that it changed the emergency lending program in order to aid the oil sector. Oil and gas companies lobbied the Fed over the first weeks of the pandemic to ease eligibility requirements and use restrictions for the program, and the Fed altered its requirements in late April, a move praised by oil-state lawmakers and the oil and gas industry.</p>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p><em>Brouillette claims: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-05-12/energy-chief-says-fed-was-asked-to-expand-lending-for-oil-firms?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=87851446&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8NmrI66CzajonN3JQNlAne8qxX2lcRj3Jtb7PUK0Xt-8eepJvd7qHlAP-_yfBQ80kRH5i67doW75pf_Rg_i1txI8l6Ib6fpZTUqPsFu1BXW9Ihfdo&_hsmi=87851446" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>. April Fed program changes: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/30/main-street-loans-coronavirus/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=87851446&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8NmrI66CzajonN3JQNlAne8qxX2lcRj3Jtb7PUK0Xt-8eepJvd7qHlAP-_yfBQ80kRH5i67doW75pf_Rg_i1txI8l6Ib6fpZTUqPsFu1BXW9Ihfdo&_hsmi=87851446" target="_blank">Washington Post</a>, <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2020/05/11/oil-and-gas-companies-asked-then-received-changes-to-fed-coronavirus-stimulus-program/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=87851446&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8NmrI66CzajonN3JQNlAne8qxX2lcRj3Jtb7PUK0Xt-8eepJvd7qHlAP-_yfBQ80kRH5i67doW75pf_Rg_i1txI8l6Ib6fpZTUqPsFu1BXW9Ihfdo&_hsmi=87851446" target="_blank">NPR State Impact</a>, <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/04/30/fed-change-allows-oil-companies-to-qualify-for-recovery-loans/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=87851446&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8NmrI66CzajonN3JQNlAne8qxX2lcRj3Jtb7PUK0Xt-8eepJvd7qHlAP-_yfBQ80kRH5i67doW75pf_Rg_i1txI8l6Ib6fpZTUqPsFu1BXW9Ihfdo&_hsmi=87851446" target="_blank">Roll Call</a>, </em><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/30/feds-expansion-of-lending-program-sparks-oil-bailout-worries-227545?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=87851446&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8NmrI66CzajonN3JQNlAne8qxX2lcRj3Jtb7PUK0Xt-8eepJvd7qHlAP-_yfBQ80kRH5i67doW75pf_Rg_i1txI8l6Ib6fpZTUqPsFu1BXW9Ihfdo&_hsmi=87851446" target="_blank"><em>Politico</em></a><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-11/buffett-backed-solar-project-near-vegas-wins-trump-blessing?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=87782018&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--TNVauhW3bvDHKpcc7GzS09_vXwDgTZ1ok8ohBT7dEKo4yo_-GOJeQxLtP5ZVk4pJVt4Y4QHQZWtAUpYbnAyjiPb-xVUTAkSMs9abNMrNgYCbQ_UM&_hsmi=87782018" target="_blank"></a></p><p class=""><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, and sign up for daily </em><a href="http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=7c84c08aaa" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A gas flare from the Shell Chemical LP petroleum refinery illuminates the sky on August 21, 2019 in Norco, Louisiana. Drew Angerer / Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
As calls for a People's Bailout in response to the coronavirus pandemic continue to grow across the United States, a new analysis warns that the country's Big Oil companies "stand to reap yet another billion dollar bailout" thanks to the Federal Reserve's plans to buy up to $750 billion in corporate debt.
The analysis (pdf), released Wednesday by the advocacy group Friends of the Earth (FOE), explains that this expected bailout for polluters relates to a controversial $500 billion corporate slush fund included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that Congress passed in March.
<p>According to FOE's report, <em>The Big Oil Money Pit</em>:</p><blockquote>Of that amount, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin enjoys direct control over a comparatively small $46 billion reserved for aviation and industries deemed essential to "national security." But the remaining $454 billion went to the Federal Reserve, which will use the money to implement emergency lending programs for corporations and municipalities. Secretary Mnuchin must approve these lending programs and wields considerable power over their design, but the money itself will move through the Fed.<br>After weeks of unprecedented human suffering and an ongoing failure to support frontline workers, the Fed announced on April 9, 2020 how it would spend the first $195 billion of the slush fund. A full $75 billion would go to buy corporate debt. But because the Fed can leverage money appropriated by Congress, the real size of this program is $750 billion. Considering that a majority of the money from the first stimulus [is] still unspent, there is plenty of room for this program to grow.<br></blockquote><p>FOE found that the fossil fuel giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Conoco "are together eligible for a maximum $19.4 billion in benefits, based on their credit ratings and outstanding long-term debt."</p>
<div id="0f3d4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ffa4587779be08a5a8dff623feb89e8b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1250456629532692481" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">NEW ANALYSIS: Trump’s admin just announced a $750 billion corporate slush fund -- money that will enrich oil execs… https://t.co/9fz8NWZzDv</div> — Friends of the Earth (@Friends of the Earth)<a href="https://twitter.com/foe_us/statuses/1250456629532692481">1586967067.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The Fed <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/03/24/blackrock-must-manage-climate-risk-it-takes-fed-debt-buyout-program" target="_blank">has hired</a> BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, to administer part of its debt-buying efforts related to the pandemic. "As BlackRock begins purchasing 'high yield' exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to bolster corporate debt markets," FOE warns, "energy companies (predominantly oil and gas) stand to benefit disproportionately as the largest single issuer of junk bonds, at 11% of the entire U.S. market."</p>
<p>Other key takeaways from the report include:</p><ul><li>There are 12 fracking-focused oil and gas companies that could potentially qualify for the new program. Together, they may be eligible for over $24.1 billion in potential benefits.</li><li>Major fracking company Continental Resources, whose debt was recently downgraded to below investment grade by S&P, is potentially eligible for as much as $1.5 billion under new, weaker standards announced by the Federal Reserve.</li></ul>
<p>Echoing climate campaigners' <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/03/we-need-peoples-bailout-not-polluters-bailout-climate-groups-move-preempt-big-oil" target="_blank">comments</a> after President Donald Trump met with fossil fuel executives at the White House earlier this month, FOE senior policy analyst Lukas Ross <a href="https://foe.org/news/new-report-big-oils-money-pit-to-reap-stimulus-billions/" target="_blank">said</a> in a statement Wednesday that "oil company bailouts are simply throwing good money after bad."</p><p>"Congress and the Democrats must stop this endless stream of handouts to an industry that is exploiting a public health crisis for financial gain," Ross declared. "These potential payoffs to major campaign contributors are the least efficient way of re-starting the economy and will just serve to enrich oil executives."</p><p>"Oil companies are trying to punt the financial reckoning of their fracking debacle and Congress should not enable their addiction with public tax dollars," he added. "Instead of pumping money into an irresponsible industry that plays shell games with its debt, Congress should focus on providing direct support to workers and communities on the frontlines of coronavirus."</p><p>As the Trump administration has<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/amid-climate-crisis-and-raging-pandemic-trump-blasted-morally-bankrupt-multibillion" target="_blank"> tried</a> to spend billions of taxpayers dollars to "fill up" the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and major banks are <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/10/critics-decry-massive-step-wrong-direction-big-banks-move-buy-fracking-industry" target="_blank">reportedly preparing</a> to take over fossil fuel assets with CARES Act funding, climate action advocates have <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/03/we-need-peoples-bailout-not-polluters-bailout-climate-groups-move-preempt-big-oil" target="_blank">charged</a> that "we need a people's bailout, not a polluters' bailout!"</p><p>Hundreds of community leaders, lawmakers, and groups—including FOE—have joined the demand for Congress to pursue a <a href="https://thepeoplesbailout.org/" target="_blank">people's bailout</a> guided by five key principles:</p>
<div id="90a82" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d4dd414f6709a83588b90e27c5ce37cb"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1250127963166826497" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The response to one existential crisis must not fuel another. Let's not perpetuate the status quo of fossil fuel pr… https://t.co/VJPOCAFuxd</div> — Sierra Club (@Sierra Club)<a href="https://twitter.com/SierraClub/statuses/1250127963166826497">1586888707.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The new FOE report includes some specific calls to action directed at Congress:</p><ul> <li>Prioritize direct aid to still neglected workers and communities on the frontlines of the crisis.</li><li>Engage in aggressive oversight to ensure BlackRock does not benefit unfairly from purchasing its own products or needlessly bolster fossil fuel assets.</li><li>Eliminate Secretary Mnuchin's authority to waive crucial protections banning companies receiving bailouts stock buybacks.</li><li>Make future stimulus aid conditional on new and binding protections for workers and the environment.</li><li>Make oil, gas, and coal companies ineligible for support from existing stimulus programs, unless it is conditioned on a phaseout of existing production and an iron-clad commitment to existing pension and environmental liabilities.</li></ul><p>"Much more work needs to be done, both to support workers and families in the face of COVID-19 and to prevent a runaway bailout of the fossil fuel industry," the report says. "Congress cannot afford to wait."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/15/amid-calls-peoples-bailout-feds-corporate-debt-buying-could-mean-billion-dollar-big" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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'We Need People's Bailout, Not Polluters' Bailout': Climate Groups Move to Preempt Big Oil Giveaway Amid Pandemic
05 April
Politics
President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable meeting with energy sector CEOs in the Cabinet Room of the White House April 3 in Washington, DC. Doug Mills-Pool / Getty Images
By Andrea Germanos
A coalition of climate organizations strongly criticized President Donald Trump's in-person Friday meeting with the chief executives of some of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world, saying the industry that fueled climate disaster must not be allowed to profiteer from government giveaways by getting bailout funds or preferred treatment during the coronavirus pandemic.
<p>The CEOs attending the White House <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/02/moving-rob-us-blind-broad-daylight-trump-hold-person-meeting-big-oil-ceos-discuss" target="_blank">meeting</a>, scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday, have been <a href="ttps://twitter.com/jamieclimate/status/1245833208828014592" target="_blank">dubbed</a> "the seven oily henchman of the climate apocalypse" and reportedly include ExxonMobil's Darren Woods, Chevron's Michael Wirth, and Energy Transfer's Kelcy Warren, as well as billionaire and fracking pioneer Harold Hamm, who recently stepped down as CEO of Continental Resources CEO.</p>
<div id="78f3f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="575447fe0d2868ff4f1624d4c7bae8af"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1245830362174902277" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Where the rest of the world sees a global health and economic crisis, fossil fuel CEOs see an opportunity to line t… https://t.co/It14306Bif</div> — Greenpeace USA (@Greenpeace USA)<a href="https://twitter.com/greenpeaceusa/statuses/1245830362174902277">1585864079.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The summit comes on the heels of a month in which more than 10 million Americans <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/02/never-seen-anything-it-economists-warn-66-million-new-jobless-claims-portend" target="_blank">lost</a> their jobs, and millions of Americans <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/03/unacceptable-trump-administration-says-millions-may-have-wait-5-months-receive-1200" target="_blank">may be stuck</a> waiting weeks to receive their one-time stimulus check while big businesses stand ready to <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/27/there-should-be-shame-watch-ocasio-cortez-excoriate-gop-over-massive-corporate" target="_blank">reap</a> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/02/coronavirus-corporate-bailout-deal-161374" target="_blank">benefits</a> of their share of $500 billion in corporate bailout funds that were part of the coronavirus relief package passed last week.</p><p>"If corporations are people, they shouldn't be getting more financial assistance than the American people," said Mary Gutierrez, executive director of Earth Ethics. "This isn't the time for bailouts, it's the time for transitioning. We need to be transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources."</p><p>Earth Ethics is part of the <a href="https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/" target="_blank">Stop the Money Pipeline</a> coalition, which advocates for financial institutions to stop funding and investing in projects the group says amount to "climate destruction." </p><p>The big oil summit, the coalition warned, must not lead to a bailout for the industry, especially at a time working Americans' needs must be centered and as the climate crisis necessitates huge investments away from dirty energy towards renewables.</p><p>The meeting's agenda "is reportedly expected to include discussions about federal storage of oil, tariffs on foreign oil, and drilling on public land," CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/02/trump-seen-as-moderator-in-world-oil-talks-as-he-prepares-to-meet-us-oil-ceos-over-price-collapse.html" target="_blank">reported</a> Thursday. CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/stock-market-news-today-040220/index.html" target="_blank">added</a>, "The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's biggest lobby, has said oil companies aren't seeking a bailout from Trump."</p><p>But the climate coalition isn't convinced of that API claim.</p><p>"Let's not be fooled by these CEOs' claims that they don't want bailout money: if they're going to the White House, it's either to ask for yet another spigot of federal government money for corporations or for yet another relaxation of environmental protection rules," said Moira Birss, Amazon Watch's climate and finance director.</p><p>"It's unacceptable that Trump is more focused on serving corporate interests that are destroying our climate than responding to the urgent needs of workers, the unemployed, and the sick. We need a people's bailout, not a polluters' bailout!" she added.</p><p>New polling also indicates the American public has little appetite for bailing out the fossil fuel industry.</p><p><a href="https://morningconsult.com/2020/04/02/energy-bailouts-coronavirus-pandemic/%20" target="_blank">According to</a> a Morning Consult poll released Thursday, just 38% of voters support a bailout for the oil and gas industry, while 54 percent back a renewables industry bailout.</p><p>Jamie Henn of the Stop the Money Pipeline Coalition <a href="https://twitter.com/jamieclimate/status/1245718326069751812" target="_blank">said</a> the fossil fuel sector has been up to "terrible things" amid the pandemic. As one example, he pointed to the industry getting "the Environmental Protection Agency to stop enforcing environmental and public health protections indefinitely."</p>
<div id="bffd8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7f49bb64ae83d203086da14f9f34c1e1"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1245779765400932354" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">One of the more important twitter threads in a long time. The fossil fuel industry is dirty in every way https://t.co/D1eymMRkr7</div> — Bill McKibben (@Bill McKibben)<a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/statuses/1245779765400932354">1585852016.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The industry has friends in Congress helping it get its wishes. Twelve Senate Republicans <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/02/pandemic-paralyzes-global-economy-world-awash-seas-oil-nowhere-left-store-it" target="_blank">urged</a> Interior Secretary David Bernhardt this week to give the industry help during the economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis by suspending federal royalty payments for fossil fuels.</p><p>"Oh, so we have to pay our rent, but now Big Oil doesn't have to pay anything for destroying our public lands? Cool, cool," <a href="https://twitter.com/jamieclimate/status/1245103901759528960" target="_blank">said</a> Henn.</p><p>Janet MacGillivay, executive director of the Indigenous women-led group <a href="https://seedingsovereignty.org/" target="_blank">Seeding Sovereignty</a>, said it's clear who needs to get help right now.</p><p>"Sending a financial liferaft to failing fossil fuel corporations while so many are losing jobs and hope for recovery is a slap in the face to hardworking American families," said MacGillivay.</p><p>"While many are struggling to breathe, oil fat cats are looking for yet another handout for their businesses that pump pollution into our finally clearing air and lungs. With EPA pollution enforcement sidelined during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Trump administration's rollback of health-based fuel efficiency standards during a climate crisis, now is the time to put the brake — not the gas — on oil company handouts. Let's invest in renewable, safe energy jobs," she added.</p><p>There may be an even bigger prize than a bailout on the table.</p><p>"The biggest win the fossil fuel industry could receive during the coronavirus crisis," <a href="https://heated.world/p/whats-better-than-a-bailout-silencing" target="_blank">according to</a> Emily Atkin, who writes the Heated newsletter, is "the ability to silence their most effective political opponents — climate activists — by threatening them with hefty financial penalties, felonies, and prison time for protesting their operations."</p><p>That's because other states could follow in the footsteps of three states that have passed so-called "critical infrastructure bills" since the coronavirus outbreak that bar climate activists from engaging in civil disobedience.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/03/we-need-peoples-bailout-not-polluters-bailout-climate-groups-move-preempt-big-oil" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Petrochemicals are rapidly becoming the largest driver of global oil consumption. Stas_V / iStock / Getty Images Plus
By Ajit Niranjan
As wind farms, solar plants and electric cars threaten demand for fossil fuels, oil and gas executives are betting big on another environmental vice: plastic.
<p>In the last 10 years, companies including BP, ExxonMobil and Shell have invested $89 billion (€82 billion) in 210 chemical projects linked to America's shale gas boom alone, according to the American Chemistry Council. And a further 133 projects are being planned or in the process of being built.</p><p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/the-plastics-issue-we-seem-to-ignore/a-47307954" target="_blank">Petrochemicals</a>, which make up 99% of all plastics, are the versatile building blocks of modern life. Derived from petroleum and fossil gas, they are found in clothes, paper, fertilizers and cleaning products — and even food preservatives and medicine.</p>
<p>Petrochemicals are rapidly becoming the largest driver of global oil consumption, a <a href="https://www.iea.org/news/petrochemicals-set-to-be-the-largest-driver-of-world-oil-demand-latest-iea-analysis-finds" target="_blank">report </a>by the International Energy Agency found in 2018. They are set to account for a third of the growth in demand to 2030 and half of the growth to 2050, ahead of trucks, planes and ships.</p><p>As demand for fuel peaks, petrochemicals may be the "last man standing," said Theo Jan Simons, a plastics and chemicals expert at consultancy McKinsey.</p>
<p>Energy companies have recognized that shift in official documents.</p><p>Saudi Aramco said in a recent investor report that its chemical investments have removed risk from its portfolio. Shell, in a 2018 energy transition report, said that strong earnings from its downstream business — which includes petrochemicals — have helped offset a downturn in oil and gas prices.</p><p>ExxonMobil said last year that growth in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals">chemicals</a> could counter falling fuel demands from electric cars, <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/03/your-plastic-addiction-is-bankrolling-big-oil/" target="_blank">Mother Jones reported</a> earlier this month, while BP has excluded petrochemicals from its recent pledge to go carbon-neutral by 2050.</p><p>With fuel demand depressed by coronavirus and a price war threatening to pump out more oil, the industry's traditional revenue streams <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-what-countries-are-doing-to-minimize-economic-damage/a-52816921" target="_blank">are on even shakier ground</a>. That could spur them to make more petrochemicals for a market that some analysts warn is already saturated.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg5ODY5OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTI2MzAzNH0._ZFPtMkS5wzHPZA6m4TuQd7YmygxVwqVsvYFwt9tA8g/img.png?width=980" id="76b70" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="537be25e5fc108654160aca51ad38be3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<h3>Plastic Pollution Already Dangerous</h3><p>Plastic production has increased about 200-fold since 1950, but only 9% of the plastic ever made has been recycled, <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782" target="_blank">according to a study</a> published in the journal Science Advances in 2017. The rest of the waste was burned or thrown into landfills and nature, where it is growing into a symbol of ecological neglect.</p><p>Each year millions of tons of plastic flood into <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans">oceans</a> and wash up on beaches, killing fish and other <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life">marine life</a>.</p><p>What's more, plastic also carried a carbon footprint in its production and when burned as waste. This is responsible for about 2% of global emissions, though the net effect on the climate may be lower, because plastic packaging reduces food waste and lightweight plastics save fuel in transport.</p><p>The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) projected in a report last year that annual global plastic emissions will rise from 0.86 gigatons of carbon dioxide in 2019 to 2.8 gigatons by 2050 — or the equivalent of building 400 medium-sized coal plants.</p>
<h3>Supply, Demand for Plastics an Illusion?</h3><p>Despite its many uses, some experts say the proliferation of plastics is not driven by demand.</p><p>For decades, oil and gas companies needed to create markets for byproducts or manage them as waste streams, and responded by creating new markets, said Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for Environmental Law and lead author of the report on plastics and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>.</p><p>"We're seeing that very clearly with the market for single-use plastics. Much of that increase is driven not by consumer demand but [the] need to offload supply," said Muffett.</p><p>A spokesperson for Shell disputed this, saying that the company was expanding its chemicals business to meet the rising demand from economic growth. Echoing this, Simons, the McKinsey consultant, also said the rise in petrochemicals is in line with growth of the overall economy.</p><p> Still, in a market beset by green technology and volatile geopolitics, petrochemicals may represent a more stable source of revenue than fuel.</p><p>There is a growing emphasis by the fossil fuel industry to make more plastic because of falling oil demand and prices, said Kevin Stairs, chemicals policy director at Greenpeace EU.</p><p>A price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia on the back of the coronavirus pandemic pushed oil prices down 30% at the start of March. The fall, according to market research from Wood Mackenzie, is set to result in a "severe overcapacity" of ethylene, the biggest petrochemical by volume and value and the foundation of plastic bags and bottles. Other experts argue that a slowdown in the economy might decrease demand and spur the industry to cut production.</p>
<h3>Plastic Falling out of Favor With the Public</h3><p>From coastal villagers lamenting spoiled beaches to citizens concerned about microplastics in drinking water, communities have pressured governments into regulating plastics.</p><p>Across Africa, 34 countries have banned or taxed single-use plastics, according to the United Nations. China and India plan to phase them out by 2022. A rise in alternative materials and a shift toward circular economies have put petrochemical producers under pressure, said Hans-Josef Fell, president of think tank Energy Watch Group.</p><p>Oil and gas companies have taken a "huge gamble" on demand for plastic that hasn't materialized, said Muffett. "What they're running up against is that the global south is increasingly rejecting plastics in a growing number of forms."</p><p>As more and more countries turn away from plastic, "the case that there's some massive unmet market out there begins to crumble," he added.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/oil-gas-industry-look-to-profit-rich-plastics-as-revenue-plunges/a-52834661?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">DW</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
Trump arrives to speak during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, at the White House on March 21, 2020, in Washington, DC. JIM WATSON / AFP via Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
Climate advocacy groups responded with swift condemnation Thursday after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will recommend that President Donald Trump ask Congress for as much as $20 billion to purchase oil in what Barron's reported "would essentially equate to a bailout of the U.S. oil industry, because several U.S. producers would likely go out of business if demand and prices stay low."
<p><br/></p>
<p>"Let's go out and buy … Fill up the reserve," Mnuchin <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mnuchin-calls-u-buy-much-132513002.html" target="_blank">said</a> in a Thursday morning interview with Fox Business Network, referring to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The secretary's comments about potential purchases that could fill the SPR for a decade came after Trump <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/13/shock-doctrine-press-conference-trump-bails-out-oil-industry-not-us-families" target="_blank">declared</a> Friday that "we're going to fill it right up to the top."</p><p>The U.S. advocacy group Food & Water Action issued a statement Thursday denouncing the possible multibillion-dollar buys by the Trump administration as a "gross abdication of duty."</p>
<p>"It is often said that moments of crisis bring out the true colors of those in power," said Food & Water Action Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. "This could not be better exemplified than by Trump's new plan to spend tens of billions of dollars bailing out the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuel</a> industry instead of diverting every available resource to the overwhelming needs of our overburdened public health system trying desperately to tackle the virus outbreak."</p><p>"A $20 billion oil buy for the country's petroleum reserve is nothing more than a thinly-veiled handout to the fossil fuel industry at a time when its profits are suddenly declining from record highs," she said. "The last thing Trump should be doing in this time of generational crisis is allocating vital national resources to an industry that contributes to global environmental and human health instability."</p><p>Hauter added that "well-meaning members of Congress from both parties should be rejecting this egregious proposal out of hand."</p>
<p>Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), also spoke out against a bailout for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/big-oil">Big Oil</a>, particularly as the world works to contain the new coronavirus that, <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" target="_blank">according to</a> Johns Hopkins University's tracker, has killed at least 9,700 people and infected more than 236,000 across the globe.</p><p>"The Trump administration's proposal to spend $20 billion for their oil industry buddies is as tone deaf as it is morally bankrupt," Hartl said. "People are suffering and dying, but all Trump and Mnuchin care about is keeping the fossil fuel industry rich while our planet's climate unravels and a global pandemic rages."</p><p>The Department of Energy <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-executes-direction-president-trump-announces-solicitation-purchase-crude" target="_blank">announced</a> in a statement Thursday that Trump has directed the DOE to fill the SPR "to its maximum capacity by purchasing 77 million barrels of American-made crude oil."</p><p>The DOE statement noted that the agency had earlier in the day disclosed a solicitation for the purchase of an initial 30 million barrels and explained that more solicitations will follow, with a focus on small to midsize oil producers that have been particularly affected by the pandemic and related economic issues.</p><p>"DOE is moving quickly to support U.S. oil producers facing potentially catastrophic losses from the impacts of COVID-19 and the intentional disruption to world oil markets by foreign actors," Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said in the statement.</p><p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-19/trump-targets-smaller-producers-in-plan-to-buy-oil-for-reserve" target="_blank">According to</a> Bloomberg, Brouillette told reporters Thursday that DOE is seeking $3 billion from Congress to cover the cost of those purchases.</p><p>"We're moving as fast as we can," Brouillette said. "It's our expectation that once Congress appropriates the funds, we can start to purchase oil approximately two weeks after that date."</p>
<p>Environmental activists in recent days <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/13/shock-doctrine-press-conference-trump-bails-out-oil-industry-not-us-families" target="_blank">have decried</a> the Trump administration's focus on propping up the fossil fuel industry that has hugely contributed to the global <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a> rather than improving the federal government's efforts to manage the ongoing public health crisis.</p><p>On a global scale, climate action advocates <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/18/global-green-new-deal-supporters-urge-world-leaders-learn-coronavirus-tackle-climate" target="_blank">have</a> called on world leaders to learn from coronavirus and pursue a global Green New Deal to address the climate emergency and the world's economy with a just transition to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">renewable energy</a>.</p><p>Trump, however, has maintained his support for the fossil fuel industry. Oil prices surged a record 24% Thursday after the president <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oil-price-jumps-trump-willl-enter-opec-dispute-appropriate-time-2020-3" target="_blank">said</a> during a White House press briefing that he would get involved in the ongoing Saudi-Russia oil <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-canada-oil-idUSKBN21637Q" target="_blank">price war</a> at an "appropriate time."</p><p>Business Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oil-price-jumps-trump-willl-enter-opec-dispute-appropriate-time-2020-3" target="_blank">reported</a> that "the gains were the best daily performance ever for U.S. crude. Still, prices are down roughly 60% as major producers prepare to ramp up production while the coronavirus pandemic weighs on demand."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/amid-climate-crisis-and-raging-pandemic-trump-blasted-morally-bankrupt-multibillion" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>Related Articles Around the Web
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Honolulu beachfront. tpsdave / Pixabay
By Dana Drugmand
Hawaii has officially joined the fight to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the climate crisis. On Monday the City of Honolulu filed a lawsuit against 10 oil and gas companies, seeking monetary damages to help pay for costs associated with climate impacts like sea level rise and flooding.
<p>The <a href="https://www.honolulu.gov/rep/site/ccsr/City_and_County_of_Honolulu_vs._Sunoco_LP_et_al.pdf" target="_blank">lawsuit</a>, filed in Hawaii state court, is based on claims of nuisance, failure to warn, and trespass and alleges that the climate impacts facing the city stem from the oil companies' decades-long campaign to mislead policymakers and the public on the dangers of fossil fuels.</p><p>"For decades and decades the fossil fuel companies knew that the products they were selling would have tremendous damaging economic impacts for local governments, cities, and counties that our taxpayers are going to be forced to bear," Honolulu's chief resilience officer Josh Stanbro said at a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MayorKirk/videos/2962289193809408/" target="_blank">press briefing</a> outside the courthouse on Monday. "Instead of disclosing that information, they covered up the information, they promoted science that wasn't sound, and in the process have sowed confusion with the public, with regulators, and with local governments."</p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">"</span>This case is very similar to Big Tobacco lying about their products, as well as the pharmaceutical companies pushing an opioid epidemic," added Council Budget Chair Joey Manahan.</p>
<p>Over a dozen cities, counties, and states across the country have filed climate liability lawsuits against fossil fuel producers. Two federal judges have dismissed cases brought by Oakland/San Francisco and by New York City; the cities are appealing those decisions. Four other federal judges have sent climate cases brought by Rhode Island, Baltimore, and communities in Colorado and California back to state court where they were originally filed. The fossil fuel companies want the cases in federal court where they believe they have an easier path to dismissal.</p><p>Honolulu now joins these communities that are turning to the courts to hold Big Oil accountable. </p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">"</span>This case that was filed this morning is really about accountability," said Stanbro. "Someone has to hold accountable corporations that color outside the lines and don't play by the rules. The place to hold them accountable is in court."</p>
<p>Honolulu is already experiencing climate impacts including extreme heat and precipitation, severe storms and flooding, and coastal erosion. Last year was the <a href="https://sierracluboahu.org/mayor-kirk-caldwell-says-2019-was-oahus-hottest-year-ever/" target="_blank">hottest year on record for the city</a>, and the warming trend is expected to continue. As cited in the <a href="https://www.honolulu.gov/rep/site/ccsr/City_and_County_of_Honolulu_vs._Sunoco_LP_et_al.pdf" target="_blank">complaint</a>, Honolulu has already lost 25 percent of its beaches due to erosion and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_blank">rising sea levels</a>. And, as Department of Facility Maintenance Director Ross Sasamura mentioned during the press briefing, the city experiences nuisance flooding caused by rising seas' extreme tidal influence.</p><p>"It's going to cost us billions to make our island more resilient," Manahan said during the briefing. "Sea level rise and climate change pose a great threat to our way of life, and our longstanding relationship with our island and our oceans."</p><p>The state has estimated that elevating roads alone could cost $15 billion. The island of Oahu has $12.9 billion in private property that is vulnerable to sea level rise.</p><p>"The costs are in the billions, and those billions should come from the profits, the billions and billions of dollars in profits that have been gained from the oil corporations," Stanbro said.</p>
<p>Calling climate liability lawsuits a "fringe litigation movement," Phil Goldberg, counsel for the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/manufacturers-accountability-project" target="_blank">Manufacturers' Accountability Project</a>, a project of the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/national-association-manufacturers" target="_blank">National Association of Manufacturers</a> (<span style="background-color: initial;">NAM</span>), <a href="https://mfgaccountabilityproject.org/2020/03/09/map-statement-on-honolulu-filing-climate-litigation-collaboration-not-litigation-is-the-best-way-to-fight-climate-change/" target="_blank">had critical words for Honolulu in a statement</a>: "Honolulu's decision to move forward with litigation ignores the reality that these lawsuits have nothing to do with fighting <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate change</a> and will lead only to increased costs for local residents." <span style="background-color: initial;">NAM</span> has received more than a million dollars from the oil industry trade group the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-petroleum-institute" target="_blank">American Petroleum Institute</a>.</p><p>Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell initially <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/11/05/honolulu-hawaii-climate-suit-oil/" target="_blank">announced the city's intent to sue</a> oil companies in November 2019, on the heels of an <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/10/30/maui-climate-liability-lawsuit-oil-industry/" target="_blank">announcement by Maui</a> County Mayor Michael Victorino to do the same. The Maui County Council <a href="https://mauinow.com/2020/02/21/maui-council-unanimously-backs-mayors-request-to-sue-big-oil/" target="_blank">recently voted to approve</a> Victorino's resolution to file a lawsuit, and Maui is expected to file its lawsuit soon.</p><p>The companies named as defendants in Honolulu's lawsuit include BP, BHP Group, Aloha Petroleum, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, ExxonMobil, Marathon Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, and Sunoco.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/03/09/fossil-fuel-companies-knew-honolulu-hawaii-lawsuit-climate-impacts" target="_blank">DeSmog</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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Oil and chemical refinery plants cover the landscape next to African American communities along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images
By Derrick Z. Jackson
The Trump administration is trying mightily to gut the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the law that mandates rigorous, science-based environmental impact reviews for major infrastructure and construction projects prior to federal permitting. NEPA also reserves significant time for the public to weigh in on the impact of projects to their communities.
The loss of public input in the administration's proposed changes to NEPA has environmental justice leaders up in arms. For them, the silencing amounts to regulatory racism.
<p>At a Feb. 25 public hearing on the proposal in Washington, DC, Hilton Kelley, a 2011 Goldman Environmental Prize <a href="https://www.goldmanprize.org/blog/environmental-racism-in-america-spotlight-on-the-gulf-coast/" target="_blank">winner</a> for his work in reducing emissions from petrochemical facilities and incinerators in Port Arthur, Texas, told the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) that, with at least six explosions and plant accidents in his city over the last year, the events had become so common that children play basketball right through the noise and plumes.</p><p>"When you're talking about weakening NEPA and expediting a process, this is what happens," <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/02/25/us/politics/bc-us-trump-environmental-rollbacks.html" target="_blank">Kelley said,</a> as reported by The Associated Press. "Don't lessen the regulation. Don't silence our voices."</p><p>That is precisely what the Trump administration is trying to do in <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/kathleen-rest/how-the-trump-administration-plans-to-gut-our-nations-bedrock-environmental-law" target="_blank">rewriting</a> the implementation guidelines for this bipartisan act signed by President Nixon and designed to allow the public input needed to <a href="https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/nepapub/nepa_documents/RedDont/Req-NEPA.pdf" target="_blank">ensure</a> that "man and nature can exist in productive harmony."</p><p>Cheered on by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the <a href="https://www.unlockamericaninvestment.com/about/" target="_blank">nation's leading</a> fossil fuel, chemical, construction, manufacturing, airline, trucking and farming interests, the Trump administration is trying to cut the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/20200110FINAL-FACT-SHEET-v3.pdf" target="_blank">average</a> time for environmental reviews by more than half.</p><p>The Trump NEPA rewrite would <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2020/01/16/479454/5-ways-trumps-latest-anti-environmental-proposal-allow-fossil-fuel-companies-bulldoze-communities/" target="_blank">undermine</a> the act by allowing companies and contractors to write up their own environmental reviews. It would free builders of chemical and petrochemical factories, oil and gas pipelines, highways, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/climate/trump-nepa-climate-change.html" target="_blank">port terminals</a> and other infrastructure from accounting for the cumulative effects over time of pollution, <a href="https://ceq.doe.gov/docs/ceq-publications/ccenepa/sec1.pdf" target="_blank">land and wetland loss and erosion</a>.</p><p>Plant owners seeking federal approval would no longer need to fret about indirect effects of downstream and downwind <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" target="_blank">pollution</a>, nor about a facility's contribution to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/climate/trump-nepa-climate-change.html" target="_blank">climate change</a>.</p>
<h3>More Harm to Communities Already Under Siege</h3><p>For communities long polluted by industry, which are <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/11/702348935/study-finds-racial-gap-between-who-causes-air-pollution-and-who-breathes-it" target="_blank">disproportionately poor and of color</a>, the Trump administration's changes promise particular devastation. Such communities already suffer higher rates of illnesses from asthma to cancer, life-altering effects such as low birth weight and cognitive child development, and daily insults to quality of life in diesel exhaust, soot penetrating into homes and contaminated yards and playgrounds.</p><p>If the administration has its way, NEPA implementation guidelines would be rewritten so that even in neighborhoods already densely packed with toxic industries, a proposed facility need only assess its own pollutants, not how much they combine and compound those of nearby facilities to worsen the overall quality of air, water and land.</p><p>To make sure residents cannot complain about such compounded damage, the Trump administration is trying to severely limit the opportunity for mothers, fathers, seniors, teens and community leaders to speak directly to the government.</p><p>The rollout of the proposed changes is a case in point. Despite the sweeping environmental risks Americans currently face, with <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/derrick-jackson/let-the-children-breathe-particulate-matter-how-the-trump-administrations-polluted-policies-are-hurting-children" target="_blank">air pollution</a> that kills <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/18/8775.full.pdf" target="_blank">100,000 people per year</a> and 77 million Americans drinking tap water in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/us/tapwater-drinking-water-study.html" target="_blank">violation </a>of health regulations, the White House Council on Environmental Quality allowed only two hearings on the proposed changes to NEPA before the close of public comment period March 10, in Washington, DC, and in Denver. By way of comparison, The Washington Post reported that major issues involving NEPA usually get around nine hearings.</p><p>One community leader who did get into the Washington hearing called out the cynicism of the Trump administration for its scant public scheduling. Belinda Joyner of Northampton County, North Carolina, who has <a href="https://energynews.us/2017/12/01/southeast/critics-highlight-atlantic-coast-pipelines-environmental-justice-impact/" target="_blank">spoken out</a> against dumping in her lower-income African American community by a wood pellet facility, <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article237592194.html" target="_blank">industrial-scale hog farms</a> and a part of the proposed Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/02/25/us/politics/bc-us-trump-environmental-rollbacks.html" target="_blank">told the CEQ panel</a>, "You act like you're listening, and I'm not going to say you're not. But we see the results of these hearings."</p><p>In Denver, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples" target="_blank">indigenous Americans</a> spoke out strongly against the destruction of NEPA. Seventeen-year-old Navajo Najhozhoni Rain Ben drove seven and a half hours <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2020/02/11/nepa-review-denver-hearing/" target="_blank">to say</a> to the CEQ panel, "We shouldn't be talking about this. We should be implementing plans for the future. This is not for the future. This is for profit." Musician and spoken word artist Lyla June Johnston, also Navajo, drove six hours from Santa Fe to <a href="https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2020/02/11/nepa-hearing-denver/" target="_blank">tell</a> the panel that the proposed changes were "a slap in the face to our democracy — a slap in the face to the integrity of our mother earth."</p>
<h3>The Modern Need for NEPA</h3><p>NEPA originally was conceived amid growing public awareness and outrage in the 1960s over river and lake pollution, pesticide poisoning of birds, highway proposals that would blast communities apart, and tanker oil spills that fouled beaches and wiped out wildlife. There is no less need for it today as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_blank">climate change</a> is already slapping America and the world in the face with more devastating storms, chronic coastal flooding, deadly heat waves, western and Alaskan <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" target="_blank">wildfires</a> and acceleration of species extinction.</p><p>There is arguably even more of an immediate need for NEPA in communities that were dumping grounds long before the concept of climate change, even before the signing of the act itself. It has been <a href="https://www.naacp.org/climate-justice-resources/fumes-across-fence-line/" target="_blank">proven beyond coincidence</a> that — similar to the tobacco industry marketing to vulnerable populations — toxic industries and builders of massive infrastructure projects <a href="https://comingcleaninc.org/assets/media/images/Reports/Who%27s%20in%20Danger%20Report%20FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">target locales</a> where they assume residents will offer the least political resistance.</p><p>That significantly explains the shameless shoehorning of petrochemical plants into Louisiana's <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/st-james-louisiana-plastic-petrochemicals-buy-out/" target="_blank">Cancer Alley</a> in predominantly African American areas. That explains the routing of the Keystone XL pipeline and the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/national-environmental-policy-act-nepa/" target="_blank">Dakota Access Pipeline</a> through lands and over waters indigenous Americans consider sacred, and the Atlantic Bridge pipeline protested by Joyner. It explains the <a href="https://prospect.org/greennewdeal/toxic-injustices-little-village-chicago/" target="_blank">concentration</a> of industry in heavily Latino and African American Southeast Chicago, which is dealing with an <a href="https://prospect.org/power/epa-rollbacks-hurting-americans-live/" target="_blank">endless siege</a> of dust and neurotoxic contamination from coal ash, lead, and manganese dust.</p><p>That explains the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/21/roads-nowhere-infrastructure-american-inequality" target="_blank">ramrodding</a> of roads through redlined communities and why people of color drove or flew hundreds and thousands of miles for the only two hearings offered by this administration. They said the NEPA, especially in a White House that is also <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/images/2018/06/Catalyst-Spring-2018.pdf" target="_blank">hollowing out</a> the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is one of the last tools standing between them and a wholesale hostile invasion by industry.</p>
Hope in the Courts
<p>There is a glimmer of hope that the U.S. courts will determine that President Trump and his industrial partners are reaching <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1062092145" target="_blank">too far</a> in the rewrite of NEPA, as it relates to environmental racism. Take the Atlantic Bridge Pipeline, which is in the public eye for its upcoming Supreme Court case on whether it can transect the hallowed federal Appalachian Trail.</p><p>The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/fourth-circuit-delivers-another-blow-to-atlantic-coast-pipeline/" target="_blank">recently vacated</a> a Virginia state permit for a compressor station along the pipeline because developer Dominion Energy did not adequately assess its environmental impact on the historic African American host town of Union Hill. The town <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/federal-court-revokes-gas-project-permit-in-win-for-historic-african-american-community/2020/01/07/76bb3538-3170-11ea-a053-dc6d944ba776_story.html" target="_blank">was founded</a> by free African Americans and formerly enslaved people. The federal courts have also sent other fossil fuel projects and Trump administration oil and gas leases back to the drawing board for their inadequate consideration of environmental and climate impacts.</p><p>"Five years ago, Dominion told us that there was going to be a compressor station in Union Hill and there was nothing we could do about it," Chad Oba, president of a Union Hill coalition protesting the Atlantic Coast Pipeline compressor, <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/477199-atlantic-coast-pipeline-loses-permit-battle-with-historically-black" target="_blank">said in The Hill.</a> "That's not fair, and it's not American. This is a win for a group of citizens who were committed to protecting their community and never ever gave up."</p><p>Such victories give hope that this is one rollback the Trump administration may not ultimately get away with. The assault on NEPA is so sweeping and blatant in its turning control of the environment over to industry, it is sure to receive a massive court challenge from environmental groups and environmental justice advocates. If communities like Union Hill refused to give up, there is no reason for anyone opposed to the rewriting of NEPA to throw in the towel, either. There is still time before the March 10 deadline for <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/10/2019-28106/update-to-the-regulations-implementing-the-procedural-provisions-of-the-national-environmental" target="_blank">public comment.</a></p><p>Recently, Union of Concerned Scientists colleague Adrienne Hollis interviewed Mildred McClain, an <a href="https://www.savannahnow.com/news/20200218/savannah-heads-toward-clean-energy-goal" target="_blank">environmental justice leader</a> in Savannah, Georgia, about the importance of NEPA. McClain <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/adrienne-hollis/conversation-with-the-nepa-ninja" target="_blank">recalled</a> how the act gave her community a voice against the dumping of nuclear waste and unchecked widening of the Savannah River for container ships.</p><p>"If it had not been for NEPA," McClain said, "the community would not have been a part of the process."</p><p>It's important to recognize that taking communities of color out of the process is a major goal in the administration's efforts to gut NEPA. When President Trump announced the rewrite, he was — by no small coincidence — flanked by a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/01/10/fossil-fuel-interests-applaud-trump-weakening-nepa-environmental-policy" target="_blank">nearly all-white</a> phalanx of supporters as he <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-proposed-national-environmental-policy-act-regulations/" target="_blank">claimed</a> with a straight face, "We're maintaining America's world-class standards of environmental protection. We have some of the cleanest air and cleanest water on Earth. And for our country, the air is, right now, cleaner than it's been in 40 years."</p><p>For the past two generations, NEPA has offered a powerful tool for the protection of the nation's environment. If the Trump administration succeeds in ripping it apart and turning environmental reviews over to industry, we will risk the dirtiest air and water of any developed nation on Earth, cementing this nation as a hotbed of environmental racism.</p><p>The deadline for public comments on the proposed changes to NEPA closes this Tuesday. <a href="https://secure.ucsusa.org/onlineactions/5J0luZa4YkiUmcMR656c9g2?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tw&ms=twitter" target="_blank">Submit your comment today</a>.</p>From Your Site Articles
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