A decade after pledging to end its support for climate science deniers, ExxonMobil gave $1.5 million last year to 11 think tanks and lobby groups that reject established climate science and openly oppose the oil and gas giant's professed climate policy preferences, according to the company's annual charitable giving report released this week.
Jesse Marquez was 17 when a massive explosion at an oil refinery set his neighborhood aflame. Now he's asking the EPA to take action to prevent similar incidents. Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice
Seattle's snow-covered mountains and marine ecosystems are at risk due to climate change. Daniel Schwen / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
King County, which covers the Seattle metropolitan area, followed the lead of 10 other cities and counties in the U.S. when it filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the world's five largest oil companies for damages incurred by climate change, a county press release announced.
Suncor Energy owns the only oil refinery in Colorado. Max and Dee Bernt. CC-BY-2.0 / Flickr
By Elliott Negin
Two Colorado counties and the city of Boulder are suing ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy, Canada's largest oil company, to hold them responsible for climate change-related damage to their communities.
"We are not in anyway saying that greenhouse gases can be dismissed as a risk, or that climate change associated with the build-up of greenhouse gases can be dismissed on a scientific basis as being a non-event." These words in themselves are not surprising—they are a basic statement of scientific fact. But their source is. They were spoken by then-CEO of Mobil Lucio Noto in 1998, one year before the company merged with Exxon. The new company would go on to put at least $16 million towards funding climate-denying advocacy groups and think tanks between 1998 and 2005.
A federal judge on Thursday threw out Exxon Mobil's lawsuit that sought to derail New York and Massachusetts' probe into whether the oil giant misled investors and the public about its knowledge of climate change.
Exxon tried to convince U.S. District Court Judge Valerie A. Caproni that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey were infringing on the company's free speech rights and the AGs were pursuing politically motivated investigations.
As Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson was one of the most blatant revolving-door cases in the Trump administration and a clear sign that Trump's government was of, by and for the fossil fuel industry. But make no mistake: Mike Pompeo could be far worse.
A major front in the climate change debate has moved to the courtroom, as I've previously discussed. Last week, plaintiffs in two separate cases won significant procedural victories—one against major fossil fuel companies, and a second against the Trump administration. Here are the latest developments and their implications.
The Trump administration re-nominated Kathleen Hartnett White on Monday to be chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) after she failed to secure a Senate confirmation last year.
The two Californian cities join the counties of Marin, San Mateo and San Diego and the city of Imperial Beach that have taken similar legal action in recent months, the
San Francisco Chronicle reports.
