Category Archives: Big Oil

Big Oil, California oil industry, Climate Change, Lobbying, Nielsen Merksamer, The Climate Center

Why do CA policymakers keep turning to Big Oil for climate solutions? It’s simple: Money.

[Note from BenIndy Contributor Kathy Kerridge: The fossil fuel industry is everywhere and their lies are leading to the destruction of a habitable planet for billions of people. One of the false solutions mentioned in this OpEd is carbon capture and storage. It sounds great until you learn it has never worked, it’s frequently used for drilling more oil,  and storage may only last for 50 years. Worst of all is that if pipelines leak they can spread carbon dioxide which is heavier than oxygen. It forces the oxygen out leaving nothing for us to breathe and internal combustion engines to work, so there may be no way to flee. We need to learn about this since there is a carbon capture and storage project being proposed to capture carbon in Antioch and pipe it under the Straits to dispose of in Solano. The section related to this is bolded below.]

[Note from BenIndy Contributor Nathalie Christian: I regret having two intro notes here but please recall that Steven Lucas, the attorney The Climate Center names here as a key architect of a ‘phony coalition’ some say was manufactured to oppose refinery regulations and penalties, is an associate of Nielsen Merksamer, the firm a Valero-funded PAC has used throughout allegedly misleading efforts to influence Benicia elections. (This PAC was previously known as ‘Working Families’ and more recently ‘Progress for Benicia.’) Nielsen Merksamer’s clients include Big Tobacco AND Big Oil giants Valero Energy Corporation, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Exxon. That’s one big, happy family.]

SacBee, by Ellie Cohen, July 27, 2023

Why do policymakers in California and other states continue to turn to the architects of the climate crisis for climate solutions?

The reason is simple: money.

Fossil fuel corporations spend millions of dollars every year to paint themselves as part of the solution to climate change. In reality, they spend far more on advertising, lobbying and public relations to appear climate-friendly than they do on actual investments in clean, renewable energy.

In the first quarter of 2023, oil companies spent $9.4 million trying to influence lawmakers in Sacramento — $5.2 million of which was funneled to just three front groups created to give the impression of grassroots support for Big Oil’s agenda. All three of these front groups were registered by a single attorney, Nielsen Merksamer’s Steven Lucas.

The firm, which has long-standing ties to Big Tobacco, manipulated voters through inaccurate comments by initiative signature gatherers to overturn a key public health law prohibiting oil drilling near homes, schools and hospitals. Lucas signed off as the registrant for another Big Oil-tied front group, the California Carbon Solutions Committee, which has lobbied for (and only for) SB 438 using a lobbyist, Virgil Welch, who was formerly a top aide at the California Air Resources Board.

These comments — and the front groups, the deceitful signature-gathering and massive lobbying budgets — offer a glimpse into something familiar to political insiders but not the public. Major polluters will always disguise their intentions and invest in misleading public relations plays as they seek to dismantle our democracy and stall climate action. Oil corporations work overtime, disguising their true intentions behind lobbying and PR, to kill bold climate policies while pushing false solutions like carbon capture, all to continue lining their pockets with pollution-soaked profits.

Some even feel emboldened enough to admit that deception is a big part of what they do.

Sacramento lobbyist, Theo Pahos, went on the record recently with Capital & Main to discuss a bill related to carbon capture and sequestration, stating, “We don’t want the environmentalists to see what we’re really up to.”

A non-profit publication that covers environmental issues in California, Capital & Main then wrote this: “Pahos was talking about plans by lobbyists to change a bill meant to regulate the industry’s handling of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, in a way that would mislead lawmakers and environmentalists.”

The bill Pahos was referencing was Senate Bill 438, which on its face was attempting to provide more clarity for regulating future carbon capture projects. But Pahos was saying that his plan, and that of other lobbyists, was to roll back rules about dangerous carbon pipelines at the eleventh hour.

“We (were) misadvertising (sic) what the bill does, what our intention is,” Pahol told Capital & Main.

Carbon capture and storage is one of the oil and gas industry’s favorite false solutions. According to the industry, this technology captures carbon dioxide emissions at fossil-fueled power plants before they reach the atmosphere. Yet there is growing evidence this simply doesn’t work. One study found that the technology can only reduce a power plant’s net emissions by 10 to 11 percent. This is no solution to depend on.

The bill has since been shelved by its author, Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Merced), until 2024.

Lies, public manipulation and underhanded tactics have been a part of the fossil fuel industry’s playbook for decades — and they are only getting worse as public support for action on climate change grows.

It’s time for Gov. Gavin Newsom and California leaders to wise up to the industry’s dirty tricks and put a stop to them.

Ellie Cohen is the CEO of The Climate Center, a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.

Big Oil, California oil industry, Carbon emissions, Climate Change, Insurance and liability, Insurance Industry

‘Bad neighbor’ State Farm had at least $30B invested in fossil fuels when it abandoned CA homeowners and climate victims

Like a bad neighbor, State Farm is gone from California

An oil rig silhouetted by a golden sunset.

San Francisco Chronicle, by David Arkush and Carly Fabian, July 12, 2023

State Farm’s decision to stop providing new homeowners insurance policies in California is an indicator of the growing damage caused by climate change. As climate-driven disasters lead to higher losses, insurers like State Farm will raise prices and cut back coverage or even flee.

Far from neutral victims, though, insurers are profiting from both sides of this crisis. They collect premiums and investment profits from fossil fuels while extracting ever more from consumers whom they plan to abandon.

To be clear, there is no question that climate change is disrupting insurance markets. The rising frequency and severity of disasters are driving up the cost of insurance and destroying some insurance markets entirely by rendering areas “uninsurable.”

But there’s more going on here than a simple story of climate disasters disrupting the math of insurance.

The root cause of the climate crisis is the rampant burning of fossil fuels. Insurers are critical gatekeepers for the fossil fuel industry, providing the insurance that allows companies to operate. As experts in evaluating risk and extreme weather, insurers knew about climate change early on. But in their pursuit of short-term profits, they didn’t stop underwriting fossil fuels.

Many are still underwriting the most reckless and dangerous parts of that sector, like the expansion of fossil fuels. Some insurers, largely in Europe, have begun restricting their underwriting of fossil fuels, but U.S. insurers are dragging their feet, even as they increasingly abandon homeowners.

Insurers also invest heavily in fossil fuels, unconscionably using their customers’ premiums to profit from businesses that will destroy their homes and, in some cases, even kill them while driving up insurance costs and making many areas uninsurable.

State Farm is a prime example of insurers’ hypocrisy. Rather than suffering financially in California, the company has made substantial profits in the state in recent years, along with other homeowner insurers whose profits in California have been four times the national average, even after accounting for major wildfires. At the same time, the latest data shows State Farm alone had $30 billion invested in fossil fuels and the industry overall had over $500 billion.

The crisis has also been a boon for industry lobbyists who have seized it as an opportunity to bully states and bilk customers. When State Farm announced its decision to stop offering new California homeowners’ policies, the industry’s primary lobbying group, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, claimed insurers must be allowed to use secret models to set profitable rates. The industry has long wanted those models because they make it harder to catch insurers overcharging for policies. Rather than work on a transparent approach to modeling climate impacts, the industry is pushing a consumer protection rollback it has sought for decades.

The industry playbook appears to be this: Profit as long as possible from fossil fuels. Stick customers with not just direct climate harms, but also higher premiums, while delaying, denying and low-balling claims. Bully regulators for giveaways. Then leave.

Some neighbors. 

Although the industry isn’t putting forward serious solutions, there are steps insurance regulators and legislators can take. In an emergency, the first step is to stop the harm. California can start by requiring insurers to align their underwriting and investments with science-based climate targets to stop insurers from contributing to this crisis.

Regulators can also explore transparent solutions for pricing climate-related risk and consider developing public solutions to provide reinsurance, which is essentially insurance for insurance companies. Public reinsurance programs would facilitate reimbursements for claims above a high dollar amount to insurers that expand their coverage, allocating risks in a way that creates stability for insurers and a stronger safety net for the public.

As insurers leave vulnerable areas, and unregulated reinsurance prices soar, a public backstop for the highest losses would provide more certainty for insurers who want to offer coverage in vulnerable areas while creating a stronger safety net for consumers.

After each disaster and withdrawal, industry trade groups will push for their wish list — with no promise to stay, even if they get everything on it. It’s time for the public and regulators to advance real solutions.

David Arkush is the director and Carly Fabian is the policy advocate for Public Citizen’s Climate Program.

[Note from BenIndy Contributor Nathalie Christian: The sections bolded above reflect my added emphasis.]

Big Oil, California oil industry, Carbon emissions, Climate Change

‘Decoy’ carbon capture bill halted after fossil fuel lobbyists’ deception exposed

[Note from BenIndy Contributor Nathalie Christian: Per the person who sent me this story: ‘Same thing, different day.’ And he’s right. For fossil fuel lobbyists to admit that they are intentionally deceiving lawmakers with an old-fashioned legislative bait-‘n-switch? Wow. That said, there’s a lot of money in being credulous, or easy to deceive, especially if you’re a lawmaker.  All power to the folks at Capital & Main for doing the Land’s work.]

California’s Decoy Carbon Capture Bill Shut Down Following Capital & Main Report

An oil rig silhouetted by a golden sunset.

State senator cites story, which revealed oil lobbyist’s misleading tactics.

Capital & Main’s The Slick, by Aaron Cantú, July 5, 2023

A California state senate bill meant to clarify rules for carbon capture and storage was pulled from further consideration last week — in the wake of a Capital & Main report that the legislation was part of a possible ruse by the fossil fuel industry to roll back pipeline safety rules, according to an oil and gas lobbyist who described the scheme. SB 438, carried by Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Merced), purports to shield companies from penalties if they produce oil while injecting carbon into the ground — which would run afoul of California’s law on carbon capture.

A lobbyist had said that the bill would later be altered to allow the construction of carbon pipelines in California before federal safety rules are implemented.

In her comments, Caballero pushed back against Capital & Main’s reporting, which she stated was “filled with misleading information and incredulous accusations.”

“In no way shape or form am I going to allow any lobbyist or industry to hijack my bill for their own use,” the senator said. “This is not how I conduct my business, and my time in the Legislature has shown that I engage in a transparent and collaborative manner.”

Capturing and burying carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas heating up the planet — is viewed by fossil fuel industries, some climate policy experts and international organizations such as the U.N. as a necessary tool to fight the worsening climate crisis.

But the extent to which it should be used is disputed. Critics point out the technology captures far less CO2 than is emitted by fossil fuel infrastructure. They also warn it is being used to prolong the use of oil, gas and coal, which scientists say must be phased out as quickly as possible to limit ongoing damage from climate change.

Environmental justice groups also say that pipelines transporting carbon are dangerous. CO2 would be sent from urban refineries and gas power plants to depleted oil and gas fields in the Central Valley, which geologists say are ideal for storing carbon. But this could expose communities near pipelines to CO2 leaks. The gas asphyxiates people and animals and can stall vehicles responding to mass emergency events.

In an interview, Theo Pahos, a lobbyist whose firm’s clients include gas power plant company Calpine and the California Independent Petroleum Association, told Capital & Main that he and unnamed others came up with an idea to deceive lawmakers and environmentalists through Caballero’s bill.

He described how carbon capture advocates hatched a plan to push Caballero to alter the legislation before it was considered by the State Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee. The lobbyists’ real intention, Pahos explained, was to use the bill as a placeholder and later replace its language with a proposal to rescind a moratorium on intrastate pipelines. The moratorium is currently in place until a federal agency finalizes safety rules.

“To alleviate the concerns that have been circulating about the future intent of this bill, I have decided to ask the chair to hold the bill today to make it a two year bill,” Caballero told Assembly lawmakers in a hearing of the chamber’s Natural Resources Committee on June 26.

Making it a two-year bill means the legislation will be up for consideration again in 2024. Since California’s legislative session unfolds in two-year intervals, lawmakers can choose to withhold a bill introduced in the first year, usually if they don’t think it has the votes to pass.

Caballero carried a bill last year that resulted in California’s carbon capture regulations. It was part of a package that codified into law the state’s 2045 goal of achieving carbon neutrality — meaning California will emit an equivalent amount of warming gases as it removes from the atmosphere. Caballero voted for this legislation as well as setbacks between oil wells and homes.

This year, Caballero missed a vote on a key bill for corporate emissions disclosures and another to divest pension funds from fossil fuels, eliciting criticism from a watchdog group. She’s received $3,000 from ExxonMobil since 2019; last November, she refunded a $1,500 contribution from the company. Luiz Quinonez, her chief of staff, said it was refunded because Caballero isn’t accepting fossil fuel industry contributions.

Assemblymember Luz Rivas (D-San Fernando), who chairs the Natural Resources Committee, said she sat down with Caballero to discuss Pahos’ allegations after Capital & Main contacted Rivas’ office for comment.

“You said that that was not your intention, to gut and amend this bill to do something [contrary to what] we agreed to in a deal last year as part of the climate package, which has to do with pipeline safety,” Rivas said to Caballero.

Although Caballero pledged to bring the bill back up again next year, she also described “unresolved issues” around pipeline safety and “unitization,” a reference to surface and mineral rights as they pertain to pipelines. Caballero said she has been working with the Newsom administration to draft legislation addressing those issues.

‘We’ve been working on that, with all the stakeholders, but that was not [SB 438],” Caballero said.

The sole witness to speak on the bill, environmental lawyer Dan Ress with the Center on  Race, Poverty and the Environment, testified that the moratorium was a key part of the legislative deal that resulted in the carbon capture law.

“We appreciate the senator pulling the bill for this year, and look forward to being added to the group of stakeholders engaged as you’re talking about pipeline safety,” Ress said.

For interested folks, I took a look at Caballero’s CA Climate Accountability score and . . . yup. Checks out.

Big Oil, California oil industry, Carbon emissions, Climate Change, F Minus, Lobbying

‘Guns for hire’ – 1,500 lobbyists representing liberal, green clients ‘also working’ for fossil fuels firms

[Note from BenIndy Contributor Kathy Kerridge: There is a lot of talk about addressing climate change, and some action, but much of the current action like funding carbon capture and storage is expensive, promotes the continuation of using fossil fuels and does not work.  This article may get us to thinking about why that is.]

‘Double agents’: fossil-fuel lobbyists work for US groups trying to fight climate crisis

A new database of fossil fuel lobbyists shows how they represent clients with contradictory aims. Illustration: Javier Palma/The Guardian

New database shows 1,500 US lobbyists working for fossil-fuel firms while representing universities and green groups

The Guardian, by Oliver Milman, July 5, 2023

More than 1,500 lobbyists in the US are working on behalf of fossil-fuel companies while at the same time representing hundreds of liberal-run cities, universities, technology companies and environmental groups that say they are tackling the climate crisis, the Guardian can reveal.

Lobbyists for oil, gas and coal interests are also employed by a vast sweep of institutions, ranging from the city governments of Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia; tech giants such as Apple and Google; more than 150 universities; some of the country’s leading environmental groups – and even ski resorts seeing their snow melted by global heating.

The breadth of fossil-fuel lobbyists’ work for other clients is captured in a new database of their lobbying interests which was published online on Wednesday.

It shows the reach of state-level fossil-fuel lobbyists into almost every aspect of American life, spanning local governments, large corporations, cultural institutions such as museums and film festivals, and advocacy groups, grouping together clients with starkly contradictory aims.

For instance, State Farm, the insurance company that announced in May it would halt new homeowner policies in California due to the “catastrophic” risk of wildfires worsened by the climate crisis, employs lobbyists that also advocate for fossil fuel interests to lawmakers in 18 states.

Meanwhile, Baltimore, which is suing big oil firms for their role in causing climate-related damages, has shared a lobbyist with ExxonMobil, one of the named defendants in the case. Syracuse University, a pioneer in the fossil fuel divestment movement, has a lobbyist with 14 separate oil and gas clients.

“It’s incredible that this has gone under the radar for so long, as these lobbyists help the fossil fuel industry wield extraordinary power,” said James Browning, a former Common Cause lobbyist who put together the database for a new venture called F Minus. “Many of these cities and counties face severe costs from climate change and yet elected officials are selling their residents out. It’s extraordinary.

“The worst thing about hiring these lobbyists is that it legitimizes the fossil fuel industry,” Browning added. “They can cloak their radical agenda in respectability when their lobbyists also have clients in the arts, or city government, or with conservation groups. It normalizes something that is very dangerous.”

The searchable database, created by compiling the public disclosure records of lobbyists up to 2022 reveals:

  • Some of the most progressive-minded cities in the US employ fossil-fuel lobbyists. Chicago shares a lobbyist with BP. Philadelphia’s lobbyist also works for the Koch Industries network. Los Angeles has a lobbyist contracted to the gas plant firm Tenaska. Even cities that are suing fossil fuel companies for climate damages, such as Baltimore, have fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists.
  • Environmental groups that push for action on climate change also, incongruously, use lobbyists employed by the fossil-fuel industry. The Environmental Defense Fund shares lobbyists with ExxonMobil, Calpine and Duke Energy, all major gas producers. A lobbyist for the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund also works on behalf of the mining company BHP.
  • Large tech companies have repeatedly touted their climate credentials but many also use fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists. Amazon employs fossil-fuel lobbyists in 27 states. Apple shares a lobbyist with the Koch network. Microsoft’s lobbyist also lobbies on behalf of Exxon. Google has a lobbyist who has seven different fossil fuel companies as clients.
  • More than 150 universities have ties to lobbyists who also push the interests of fossil-fuel companies. These include colleges that have vowed to divest from fossil fuels under pressure from students concerned about the climate crisis, such as California State University, the University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University and Syracuse University. Scores of school districts, from Washington state to Florida, have lobbyists who also work for fossil-fuel interests.
  • A constellation of cultural and recreational bodies also use fossil-fuel lobbyists, despite in many cases calling for action on the climate crisis. The New Museum in New York City, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Sundance Film Institute in Utah all share lobbyists with fossil-fuel interests, as does the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Florida Aquarium. Even top ski resorts such as Jackson Hole and Vail, which face the prospect of dwindling snow on slopes due to rising temperatures, use fossil-fuel lobbyists.

Cities, companies, universities and green groups that use fossil fuel-linked lobbyists said this work did not conflict with their own climate goals and in some cases was even beneficial. “It is common for lobbyists to work for a variety of clients,” said a spokesperson for the University of Washington.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art said it had retained a lobbyist on the F Minus database “for a period during the pandemic … We are not currently working with the company.”

A spokesperson for the Environmental Defense Fund said that working for big oil is “not, in itself, an automatic disqualification. In some cases it can actually help us find productive alignment in unexpected places.” Microsoft said despite its lobbying arrangements there is “no ambiguity or doubt about Microsoft’s commitment to the aggressive steps needed to address the world’s carbon crisis”.

But the vast scale of the use of fossil-fuel lobbyists by organizations that advocate for climate action underlines the deeply embedded influence of oil, gas and coal interests, according to Timmons Roberts, an environmental sociologist at Brown University.

“The fossil-fuel industry is very good at getting what it wants because they get the lobbyists best at playing the game,” Roberts said. “They have the best staff, huge legal departments, and the ability to funnel dark money to lobbying and influence channels.

“This database really makes it apparent that when you hire these insider lobbyists, you are basically working with double agents. They are guns for hire. The information you share with them is probably going to the opposition.”