• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 3 hours GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 6 hours How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 8 hours If hydrogen is the answer, you're asking the wrong question
  • 4 days Oil Stocks, Market Direction, Bitcoin, Minerals, Gold, Silver - Technical Trading <--- Chris Vermeulen & Gareth Soloway weigh in
  • 5 days The European Union is exceptional in its political divide. Examples are apparent in Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Netherlands, Belarus, Ireland, etc.
  • 21 hours Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs
  • 4 days "What’s In Store For Europe In 2023?" By the CIA (aka RFE/RL as a ruse to deceive readers)
Water Diplomacy Takes Center Stage in Turkmen-Afghan Talks

Water Diplomacy Takes Center Stage in Turkmen-Afghan Talks

Turkmenistan is urging a practical,…

Aramco Boosts Dividends, But it Can Ill-Afford to Do So

Aramco Boosts Dividends, But it Can Ill-Afford to Do So

Despite experiencing a significant decline…

Exxon Climate Change Investigation May Become A Federal Case

The investigatory microscope has been focused on Exxon Mobil Corp. since last summer, beginning with a group of journalism students working in tandem with the Los Angeles Times. Their reporting led New York to mount its own investigation, and now California is joining the probe and a member of Congress is urging the federal government to get involved.

At issue is whether Exxon relied on climate-change research to help guide its business planning, privately recognizing the dangers that the company’s activities posed to the environment while publicly brushing aside such concerns with the argument, still used today, that climate science is ambiguous.

This was the subject of articles written by the Columbia University Energy and Environmental Reporting Fellowship, published in association with the L.A. Times. A series of stories based on their reporting was also issued by the non-profit website InsideClimate News. Related: Oil Stages Rebound From Twelve Year Lows

Last fall, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman began a state investigation into these reports, focusing on whether Exxon lied to the public – and, more to the point, its investors – about how the oil companies’ practices may hurt their ability to make profits. Now the L.A. Times reports that California Attorney General Kamala Harris is mounting a parallel probe.

Now, maybe, it’s time for other states and even the federal government to step in, says Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat. He said he’s written to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and to the Securities and Exchange Commission urging them to look into the reports suggesting that Exxon may be guilty of breaking other laws including securities fraud and violating other laws to protect consumers and investors.

Further, Lieu said he hopes Harris’ decision will encourage additional investigations, given that California has the eighth-largest economy in the world. “I think this action will be taken very seriously by Exxon Mobil,” he said. Related: Goldman Sachs Sees Oil Markets Turning Bullish Soon

A spokesman for Harris had no comment and declined even to confirm that she had begun an investigation.

Exxon had no immediate reaction to the report of the California investigation, but previously it has condemned the news reports’ assertions that it tried to play down the impact of fossil fuels on the Earth’s climate.

“The facts are that we identified the potential risks of climate change and have taken the issue very seriously,” chief Exxon spokesman Kenneth Cohen said in a statement in October. “Activists deliberately cherry-picked statements attributed to various company employees to wrongly suggest definitive conclusions were reached decades ago by company researchers.” Related: OPEC At Peak Production

And in a Nov. 20 letter to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, Cohen accused the journalism students and their instructor of major ethical lapses. In response, Steve Coll, the dean of the university’s Graduate School of Journalism, said Cohen’s “allegations are unsupported by evidence.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“More than that, I have been troubled to discover that you have made serious allegations of professional misconduct in your letter against members of the project team even though you or your Media Relations colleagues possess email records showing that your allegations are false,” Coll wrote.

An important tool for the New York investigation is the state’s Martin Act, which empowers the attorney general to prosecute any companies operating in New York that are suspected of financial fraud. It doesn’t require prosecutors to prove that a company intended to defraud, only that its information was inaccurate or not disclosed.

By Andy Tully of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:



Join the discussion | Back to homepage



Leave a comment
  • David Hrivnak on January 24 2016 said:
    George there have been several studies showing the RSS data is drifting and is in error. https://www.skepticalscience.com/satellite-measurements-warming-troposphere.htm

    Even low atmospheric ballon data shows warming of the same area. So yes Houston we have a problem.
  • George Gallagher on January 23 2016 said:
    UN Climate Fraud needs to be stopped.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm7_FVS3IMo

    Last year, climate scientists were forced to admit that computer models of predicted temperature increases calculated in 2007 were off by 75%. Since October 1996 there has been no global warming at all (Fig. 1). This month’s RSS [1] temperature plot pushes up the period without any global warming from 18 years 6 months to 18 years 9 months.

    http://www.climatedepot.com/.../global-warming.../

    Figure 1. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no global warming for 18 years 9 months since October 1996.

    The hiatus period of 18 years 9 months, or 225 months, is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.

    As agenda-driven climate scientists continue to blame every weather pattern on man-made global warming for political purposes, the real climate threat is likely to emerge out of the fact that sunspot activity is at its lowest for 100 years, which researchers warn will lead to plunging temperatures and the onset of a new mini ice age.
  • mememine69 on January 21 2016 said:
    Smog Warning Days have been rare for decades in the U.S. and Canada and now fracking's fossil fuel abundance is ending the oil wars with possible world peace and with reliable energy for generations to come.
    And we are living longer than at any time as a species.

    And will climate change science finally agree a CO2 HELL is as real as they already smoking causes cancer before it's too late to say it?

    Or are they also only "99% certain" the planet isn't flat?

Leave a comment

EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News