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By Reynard Loki
On Feb. 27, hundreds of Indigenous Waorani elders, youth and leaders arrived in the city of Puyo, Ecuador. They left their homes deep in the Amazon rainforest to peacefully march through the streets, hold banners, sing songs and, most importantly, submit documents to the provincial Judicial Council to launch a lawsuit seeking to stop the government from auctioning off their ancestral lands in the Pastaza region to oil companies. An eastern jungle province whose eponymous river is one of the more than 1,000 tributaries that feed the mighty Amazon, Pastaza encompasses some of the world's most biodiverse regions.
By Grant Smith and Bill Walker
President Trump's proposed budget for 2020 would eliminate the federal tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles. The oil industry is backing the proposal, as well as a bill to impose a "user fee" — that is, a tax — on drivers of electric vehicles and trucks.
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ExxonMobil Could Be Banned From EU Parliament After Failing to Show at Climate Hearing
ExxonMobil could be the second company after Monsanto to lose lobbying access to members of European Parliament after it failed to turn up to a hearing Thursday concerning whether or not the oil giant knowingly spread false information about climate change.
The call to ban the company was submitted by Green Member of European Parliament (MEP) Molly Scott Cato and should be decided in a vote in late April, The Guardian reported.
Why Beto O’Rourke’s Oil-Related Money Shows We Need a Just Transition to Renewable Energy
By Tim Donaghy
Time is running out for the oil and gas industry, and they know it. But delaying the transition to a clean energy economy even for a few more years means billions of dollars in profits for their investors. The 2018 elections show that even in their twilight years, oil cash can corrupt our democracy and block necessary progress on climate. The industry spent millions to kill off a Green New Deal-style initiative in Washington state and a Colorado initiative that would have increased the buffer between homes and schools and drilling areas.
When popular democracy threatened their profits, the oil industry opened up their checkbooks. And they'll run the same playbook on the fledgling Green New Deal too — unless we stop them.
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Finally, some good news about the otherwise terrible partial government shutdown. A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration cannot issue permits to conduct seismic testing during the government impasse.
The Justice Department sought to delay—or stay—a motion filed by a range of coastal cities, businesses and conservation organizations that are suing the Trump administration over offshore oil drilling, Reuters reported. The department argued that it did not have the resources it needed to work on the case due to the shutdown.
Pacific Press / Contributor / LightRocket / Getty Images
Massachusetts' Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey declared "victory" on Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected ExxonMobil's attempt to derail her office's probe into whether the fossil fuel giant misled investors and the public about its knowledge of climate change.
The justices declined to hear Exxon's appeal of an April ruling by Massachusetts' highest court, Reuters reported.
By Justin Mikulka
2018 was the year the oil and gas industry promised that its darling, the shale fracking revolution, would stop focusing on endless production and instead turn a profit for its investors. But as the year winds to a close, it's clear that hasn't happened.
Instead, the fracking industry has helped set new records for U.S. oil production while continuing to lose huge amounts of money—and that was before the recent crash in oil prices.
By Rhea Suh
It's not often that an industry chieftain brags to investors about picking the pockets of American families with help from the White House.
That's what happened, though, after Big Oil schemed with the Trump administration last summer to ensure higher gasoline consumption—to the tune of $16 billion a year—and more climate-disrupting carbon pollution from our cars, vans and pickup trucks.
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By Dana Drugmand
Koch Industries is calling for the elimination of tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs), all while claiming that it does not oppose plug-in cars and inviting the elimination of oil and gas subsidies that the petroleum conglomerate and its industry peers receive.
Outgoing Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller introduced a bill in September that would lift the sales cap on electric vehicles eligible for a federal tax credit, and replace the cap with a deadline that would dictate when the credit would start being phased out.
By Leola Abraham
Growing Resistance
The banking industry should stop funding extreme fossil fuel pipeline projects that impact the climate and violate human rights. These projects are risky for banks as they face mounting pressure from a growing resistance movement and increased reputational risk in a world that is recognizing the urgent need to rapidly tackle climate change to avoid climate catastrophe.
Big-Oil Funded Campaign Misleads Latino Voters on Washington State Carbon Tax
The fossil-fuel-funded campaign to defeat the carbon tax ballot measure in Washington State is attracting enormous sums of money as well as charges of dubious outreach efforts towards minority communities.
A review of state data by Reuters shows that the oil industry has spent more than $30 billion dollars to fight the measure—double the amount of money spent by pro-initiative groups, and the most money ever spent to defeat a ballot measure in Washington.