Tag Archives: ExxonMobil

Koch & Exxon climate denial scientist confronted by Greenpeace Students (VIDEO)

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Rarely do we meet those who have made careers selling us lies. Consider the oddball doctors who took tobacco money to deny a link between cigarette smoking and cancer, or the handful of scientists who take oil and coal money to discredit global warming science, or the people who have done both.

Willie Soon in a heated moment. Madison, WI (click to watch)

Last week, students in Wisconsin and Michigan stepped up to such an opportunity when CFACT Campus, the student arm of a well-known cabal of fossil fuel apologists, hosted climate change denier Willie Soon at several campus events around the country. Continue reading →

14 questions for Exxon from an oil spill expert

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A dead American Coot covered in oil lies among leaves and branches near the Bell Slough Wildlife Management Area near Mayflower, Arkansas April 2, 2013.

Exxon’s tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas is highlighting concerns about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, and raising questions about the risks of existing pipelines transporting diluted tar sands crude. In a familiar pattern for the oil industry, Exxon is impeding access to the spill, controlling information about the impacts, and threatening reporters with arrest; as Little Rock, Arkansas based journalist Suzi Parker put it, “the company has instituted something like martial law.” Continue reading →

Buying the Bench: Exxon, Dow and Koch Sponsor Judicial Junkets

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A new investigation by the Center for Public Integrity reveals that Exxon, Dow, the Kochs and other corporations have spent millions to sponsor judicial junkets – weekend seminars where sitting judges are “educated” in conservative legal theory and corporate-friendly topics such as “Corporations and the Limits of Criminal Law.”  As if that were not enough, CPI adds that some of judges attending the seminars later presided over cases filed the same companies. Continue reading →

If the tar sands spilling from Exxon’s Arkansas pipeline isn’t oil, then what is it?

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I’ve been to a few oil spills in my day and, sad to say, my day seems like it hasn’t ended yet.  ExxonMobil’s latest oil spill, in Mayflower, Arkansas, is of Canadian heavy crude oil. Continue reading →

Seven Photos of Oil Spills You Need to See

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Exxon's oil pipeline leaked 12,000 barrels of oil and water in Mayflower, Arkansas on March 29 causing 22 homes to evacuate.

At least 22 Arkansas families can now tell you that oil pipelines leak. Unfortunately for those families, thousands of barrels of crude, black oil from an Exxon pipeline leaked all over their neighborhood.  The only good thing that could happen as a result of the latest disaster in the oil industry is a clean “No” to two major oil projects the United States is considering- the Keystone pipeline and Arctic drilling.

See seven more reasons below why we should say no to new oil projects. Take action and say “No to Keystone” and “No to Arctic drilling.” Continue reading →

Chris Stewart, climate science denier, is now head of Congressional climate science committee

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Originally posted to PolluterWatch

Chris Stewart, climate science denier

Chris Stewart, a republican from Utah, was recently appointed Chair of the House subcommittee on Science.

This means that Congressman Stewart now has dominion over the EPA, climate change research, and “all activities related to climate.” According to the House Science Committees website, the chair of the energy subcommittee oversees:

“all matters relating to environmental research; Environmental Protection Agency research and development; environmental standards; climate change research and development; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including all activities related to weather, weather services, climate, the atmosphere, marine fisheries, and oceanic research;…”

Unfortunately for the EPA, NOAA, and anyone worried about climate change, Chris Stewart is a climate science denier. Mr. Stewart believes there is “insufficient science” to determine if climate change is caused by humans. He believes this in spite of the fact that the EPA, NOAA, and all experts in the field (which he now oversees), disagrees with him.

Continue reading →

Duke Energy & Koch Brothers aim to kill clean energy in North Carolina

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As anticipated, former Duke Energy engineer and North Carolina Representative Mike Hager has introduced a version of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s “Electricity Freedom Act” into the state’s General Assembly.

House Bill 298 would fully repeal North Carolina’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS)–a state law requiring utilities to generate more electricity from clean sources over time. The existing RPS law is credited for contributing to the rapid growth of the clean energy sector in North Carolina.

By introducing a bill to fully repeal North Carolina’s RPS law, Rep. Hager is backtracking on his own promise not to eliminate current renewable energy targets for NC’s dominant utility, Duke Energy. From the Charlotte Business Journal last December:

Hager says he does not support eliminating the renewable requirements. N.C. utilities already have committed to long-term contracts to meet the current level of renewable-energy requirements. So changing the rules could cause problems for the utilities, he notes. That is why he generally favors capping renewables at the current level.

But Rep. Hager abandoned this position, instead marching in lockstep with the American Legislative Exchange Council’s full repeal initiative.

At least seven of the bill’s sponsors are known affiliates of ALEC, including three of the four primary sponsors–Rep’s Mike Hager, Marilyn Avila, George Cleveland, Rayne Brown, Justin Burr, Sarah Stevens, and Mike Stone. Continue reading →

Koch Brother Fronts Flood into Kansas to Attack Wind Industry – REPORT

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Correction: this post listed KS Sen. Julia Lynn as a supporter of the RPS freeze–she is not and her name was removed below.

A recent flood of Koch-supported think tanks, junk scientists and astroturf groups from inside and outside of Kansas are awaiting the outcome of a bill this week that could stall progress on the growth of clean energy in Kansas.

States around the country, including Texas, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina are poised to cut back on government support for clean energy jobs using model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC, which brings companies together with state lawmakers to forge a wish list of corporate state laws behind closed doors, is coordinating this year’s assault on state laws that require a gradual increase of electricity generated by clean energy sources.

ALEC and a hoard of other Koch-funded interests operating under the umbrella of the State Policy Network have hit Kansas legislators hard with junk economic studies, junk science and a junk vision of more polluting energy in Kansas’ future. Koch Industries lobbyist Jonathan Small has added direct pressure on Kansas lawmakers to rollback support for clean energy.

This fossil fuel-funded attack ignores the good that wind energy has done for Kansas, a state known for its bipartisan support for its growing wind industry (see key report by Polsinelli Shughart). The state now has 19 operating wind farms that have brought millions to farmers leasing their land and millions more to the state, county and local levels (NRDC). The American Wind Energy Association says that Kansas wind industry jobs have grown to 13,000 with the help of incentives like the renewable portfolio standard.

Unfortunately, clean energy is not palatable to the billionaire Koch brothers or the influence peddlers they finance. Continue reading →

Greedy Lying Bastards: See the movie Exxon and the Kochs hope you don’t

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The new film Greedy Lying Bastards (GLB for short) opened Friday in theaters in about 30 cities around the US. Go see it, first of all…there is a theater list here.  And tell your friends about it. Continue reading →

Keystone XL report makes Obama Administration look Gutless on Climate

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Don't worry. The U.S. State Department is okay with encouraging tar sands mining like this.

The U.S. State Department released its draft environmental assessment of the Keystone XL  tar sands pipeline last Friday afternoon as we entered our weekends. Some of us were stunned as we watched Congress do nothing to tame the indiscriminate cuts in public jobs from the “sequester,” including hundreds of millions of dollars cut from environmental programs and protections. The announcement was further buried by today’s highly-anticipated appointments of EPA administrator Gina McCarty and Dept. of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, whom some beltway insiders speculated would be appointed last week.

While the State Department’s draft environmental impact statement acknowledges that tar sands oil production is more carbon intensive than conventional oil, the 2,000 page document seems like an easy excuse for President Obama to approve the pipeline without seeming hypocritical for breaking his State of the Unions promises on climate change.

The climate doesn’t care how any message is framed if we’re still dumping millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere like a global industrial sewer. Greenpeace’s Point of No Return report includes Alberta’s tar sands among the largest carbon fuel reserves on the planet, with potential for 420 million metric tons in annual CO2 emissions by 2020.

State Dept. says Keystone XL won’t increase tar sands production…Oil Industry Says the Opposite Continue reading →