Tag Archives: Oil lobby

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.”

Bay Area Air Quality Management District, California Regulation, Oil Industry

Big oil: influence peddling in California and the Bay Area

Repost from Air Hugger
[Editor:  Global Community Monitor‘s excellent blog, Air Hugger, has been around since early 2010.  Tamhas Griffith’s piece is a thorough exploration of the oil industry’s influence over local, regional and California government officials.  See especially his expose on the behavior of Jack Broadbent, Chief Air Pollution Control Officer of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.  – RS]

Influence

By Tamhas Griffith, August 14, 2014

Recently I have been spending more time in city and county meetings where the topic is theoretically how local government will regulate the activity of a local refinery – which is actually a multi-national multi-billion dollar entity with a local franchise.  Somehow during these meetings the regulation of health and safety of the community always seems to take a back seat to jobs and money.

We all know  one thing that these big oil companies have is a lot of MONEY. For example, the 2013 profits for the BIG 5 oil companies, you know, BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell­­­­­­ – were $93.3 billion last year! That’s $177 G’s  per minute.

Admittedly, Big Oil companies do have some expenses. But where they are spending this money Top 5 oil co graphmay surprise you.

Over the past 15 years, Big Oil spent $123.6 million to lobby Sacramento and $143.3 million on California political candidates and campaigns. I wouldn’t know from experience but I’d bet you can make a lot of friends with that much money dropping out of your pockets, year after year.

These friends might attach more importance to Big Oil’s concerns about over-regulation than they would to a resident who might not have the funds to contribute to anyone’s campaign fund.

A recent report by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Institute (ACCE) and Common Cause, “Big Oil Floods the Capitol: How California’s Oil Companies Funnel Funds into the Legislature,” speaks to the extreme power of the Oil and Gas Lobby, as well as the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) in Sacramento.

Dan Bacher, California Central Valley reporter for IndyBay, in his review of the report, noted that the

“fact that the oil industry is the largest corporate lobby in California, one that dominates environmental politics like no other industry“ makes California “much closer to Louisiana and Florida in its domination by corporate interests.”

Another way oil companies grease the wheels of influence is through their charitable giving in local oil and gas lobbycommunities. Where I live in Martinez, the yellow Shell refinery logo is on virtually all city events including our local Earth Day celebration located at the historic home of iconic environmentalist John Muir.  In Richmond, Chevron ladles out millions of dollars to local social services nonprofits working with low-income Richmond residents while simultaneously polluting their community.

These kinds of donations seem  to  reduce  short term costs for the local government, but there is a very real long term cost as well.

And one of the most insidious dynamics is that city budgets are structurally reliant on tax revenue from refineries.   According to the Contra Costa Times, “tens of millions in Chevron tax revenue bolster the [Richmond] city budget, providing police and other services that similarly sized cities in Contra Costa County can only dream about.”

It certainly seems like Big Oil has a stranglehold on California politics and regulatory agencies. Recently, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) came out in favor of Chevron’s expansion project.  After being advised by members of the Stationary Source committee that the appropriate behavior would be to merely answer questions at the Richmond meetings, BAAQMD Chief Air Pollution Control Officer, Jack Broadbent, chose to sign up as a speaker at both Richmond public meetings. He spoke in favor of the Chevron project and formally stated that there was no scientifically feasible way to mitigate condensable particulate matter for the Chevron project. This kind of emission from refineries is composed of carcinogenic particles about 1 micron in width that can lodge deep down in your lungs – see reference below.

microns

Prior to the two Richmond meetings, it had been clearly spelled out for the BAAQMD Stationary Source committee by multiple experts (with Broadbent present) that there was a mitigation technique (SCAQMD FEA Rule 1105.1) that would lessen pollution in Richmond by some 56 tons of the worst stuff you can breathe per year. And it has been mitigated since 2003 in the South Coast Air Quality Management District. So, choosing not to mitigate the really dangerous stuff pouring out of Chevron, like cancer-causing condensable particulate matter, is an impossible conclusion to reach by the authority charged with air quality control. Especially when you know otherwise. This is a 56 ton stain on the BAAQMD board and staff. And 56 tons of micron sized particles are unnecessarily heading for the lungs of the men, women, children, and animals that live or work in Richmond over the next year.

Is anyone at these BAAQMD meetings pushing for cleaner air except the community rights advocates?  What influence removes the teeth from the bill, waters down the regulation at the last minute, and causes people to lose their most basic moral compass?  A healthy community and environment should always be the priority.  And nothing should influence you to believe otherwise.

-Tom Griffith, Martinez Environmental Group, August 14, 2014.