Judge to haul state AGs to Texas for deposition
Hannah Hess and Benjamin Hulac, E&E News reporters
A federal judge in Texas has ordered the attorney general of Massachusetts to appear for deposition next month in a lawsuit Exxon Mobil Corp. filed as part of an attempt to block investigations into what the company knew about climate change.
U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade ruled yesterday that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D) and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) should appear in Dallas on Dec. 13. The judge will enter a second order regarding Schneiderman’s deposition after he files an answer in the case.
Kinkeade issued the order one day after a telephone status conference with the parties.
It marks the latest victory for the oil giant in an escalating legal and political battle that has come under scrutiny by Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, fossil fuel industry advocates and environmental groups.
Healey and Schneiderman have both been investigating for months whether the Exxon violated securities laws and consumer-protection rules by withholding information related to the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate.
The company alleged in a filing last week that the two attorneys general were “conducting improper and politically motivated investigations of Exxon Mobil in a coordinated effort to silence and intimidate one side of the public policy debate on how to address climate change” (ClimateWire, Nov. 14).
Both attorneys general participated in a news conference this spring, along with former Vice President Al Gore, in which they accused fossil fuel companies of committing fraud by lying about climate change science and announced a multistate effort to hold them accountable (Greenwire, March 29).
Kinkeade issued an order in mid-October suggesting that Healey may have acted in “bad faith” against the company. He pointed to comments made during the spring news conference as cause for “concern.”
A spokesman for Exxon said yesterday’s order reinforced those sentiments.
“We have no choice but to defend ourselves against politically motivated investigations that are biased, in bad faith and without legal merit. We did not start this, but we will see it through and will vigorously defend ourselves against false allegations and mischaracterizations of our climate research and investor communications,” said spokesman Alan Jeffers.
Healey has argued that Exxon’s push for discovery is “in an effort to evade legitimate” inquiries of Exxon (ClimateWire, Nov. 2).
A spokesman for Schneiderman said last night that the office “will respond appropriately.”
Healey’s office declined to comment.
Full story here: http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060045996
But, but, but….. the BEST global temp dataset analysis shows the UHI efffect has absolutely no influence on global temp anomalies …
Dr. Muller said so…
Sure, Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. Muller’s assistant in the BEST project, didn’t agree with that assement, but she’s a science “denier”, so her opinion doesn’t count…
/sarc off
When the CAGW ho-x is finally tossed in the trash bin of history, CAGW alarmists will blame their feigned ignorance of the actual effects of UHI, cloud cover and “accidental” over-adjustments to raw temperature data for “accidentally” getting everything so wrong for so long…
“SQUIRRELS!”
Would you be my master? /s
Is it OK now to say revenge is sweet?
“We have no choice but to defend ourselves against politically motivated investigations that are biased, in bad faith and without legal merit. We did not start this, but we will see it through and will vigorously defend ourselves against false allegations and mischaracterizations of our climate research and investor communications,” said spokesman Alan Jeffers.
Make America great again, one lying AG at a time! Good for all of us in the democratic West.
Well said Doglicka [November 18, 2016 at 8:45 pm]: well said indeed.
This short video clip seems to explain it (in much the same way as you correctly describe) …
https://youtu.be/CRbWk7bpUWc
Regards,
WL
Warren, just so you know, your YouTube citation has been censored in the US by the BBC.
Schneiderman is the new Eliot Spitzer.
It seems the post of NYS AG attracts narssisstic bullies more concerned with political advancement than the law.
I always smile when I see Judge Ed Kinkaide’s name come up. I’ve met him a few times, took a class from him once upon a time. It’s cheap and easy to say “the smartest man I’ve ever met”, so let instead give an example. This was at a public function, and as an important officeholder, Judge Kinkaide took it upon himself to greet the attendees as they arrived. A list of about 200 people who were waiting to greet him, and an aide had compiled a list of who they were. The Judge read that list a single time, set the page down, and then walked over and greeted all 200 by first and last name, with no prompting as though he had always known them. One of the most astounding feats of memory I have ever seen! And it’s not a big story, but it happens to be the one that I witnessed.
Before meeting Judge Kinkaide, I thought that the term “photographic memory” was a myth. Nope – he’s got it, in spades.
And needless to say, I take his opinions as the epitome of Sound Judgment.
Presumably the list included a picture of each person, or did they arrive in the list order?
SteveT
Give them a taste of their own medicine. Sue everybody all the time.
I am as proud to be an ExxonMobil shareholder right now as I am ashamed to be a New Yorker.
Various posters here are supporting protectionist policies. Note I enjoyed that Mr Trump won, but this policy is not a winner in terms of GDP, employment etc. The big losers in a protectionist strategy are consumers. And at the end of the day, it is a moot point if more employment is created or lost if you manufacture anywhere on the planet then transport, and commercialise in the US for example. Mark Perry at EIdeas has posted many times on this issue. Many products and jobs that were “offshored” may well be returning because, as costs in China (for example) and transport costs rise, the benefit of offshore manufacture is reduced. With protectionism, what happens is that the biggest lobbies for local manufacture win out, and you end up with expensive local build instead of competitive build wherever it is competitive.
Keith commented: “… you end up with expensive local build instead of competitive build wherever it is competitive….”
And you also end up with people having money to buy it. Why is it protectionism only when we tax or ask for product standards? Try buying an American car in China.
Try running a bar in Mexico.
I’m all for doing something about real air pollution, and water pollution, and soil pollution, and as a Teddy Roosevelt type of conservationist I very much want to preserve habitat and ecological balance in wilderness areas. And that’s why I hate and despise and loathe all this phony baloney plastic banana “climate change” BS. It’s downright evil because it is a scientific fraud, a financial fraud, a commercial fraud, an ecological fraud, a spiritual fraud, it is every kind of fraud imaginable. Ironically, it blows smoke around the issues of the environment rather than shedding light on them. It’s almost like the devil figured out a way to help destroy the environment whilst appearing to be trying to save it.
WUWT, someone needs to contact Exxon/Mobile and convince them to promote an Open Source Temperature Reconstruction project. Transparency is what is needed to expose this hoax. Raw data should be published, and then public comments made as to why and how the data should be “adjusted.” Right now the adjustments go unchallenged, and “tricks” to “hide the decline” can pass as acceptable practices. Activists are not the people we need to be managing this data, double-blind testing and transparency is needed. Exxon could save a fortune and do a huge public service by sponsoring an open source temperature reconstruction. The biased Government shouldn’t have a monopoly on the data and interpretation.
We’ve been warned, and we ignore these warnings at our own peril.
https://youtu.be/QowL2BiGK7o?t=1h2m9s
The AGs actually deserve to be disbarred for bringing prosecution in bad faith without legal merit (which constitutes persecution) and in jail for racketeering. Will be interesting if and how the new DOJ AG gets involved in this collusion and abuse of power between states.
The “end justify the means” finely caught up with Hilary and Slick Willy. It will catch with Al Gore and company.
Exxon can’t have known about “the effects on global warming,” since the globe isn’t warming . . .
How about using some easily understood facts using universally accepted science to make a most likely 100 year prediction. Then introduce the results of an annual natural experiment that demonstrates the magnitude of the capacity of the earth’s temperature regulating mechanisms to routinely mitigate radiative forcing factors by order of magnitude at least 10 times larger. Finally a disclaimer to the IPCC TAR means they must have known that: (1) the 100 year temperature predictions were over estimated. (2) When the sun heats up the ocean, cloud albedo blocks the sun. (2) The earth air cools by radiating to space. According to the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation the increase in cooling is a function of the temperature raised to the fourth power. A 1% increase in temperature increases cooling 4%. (3) Conduction is a function of the temperature difference between the earth’s surface and the earth’s surface air. If the earth’s surface air temperature increases 1.0 degrees Kelvin the conduction-convection forcing factor has to decrease 5.2 watts per square meter. (4) Ocean sequestration of heat is another powerful air temperature mitigating mechanism. The heat capacity of the top 700 meters of the ocean is 1000 times greater than the heat capacity of the air.
The earth’s air mitigates a 24 watts per square meter annual solar radiative forcing cycle but according to the global warming advocates theory can’t mitigate a 2 watts per square meter increase in radiative forcing from a 100 year increase in carbon dioxide. On January, fifth, the solar radiation on the earth is 354 watts per square meter. On July, fifth, the solar radiation is 330wpsm. When the sun’s radiation power per area is 23.5wpsm greater the earth’s air temperature is 3 degrees Kelvin colder. ThinkProgress doesn’t know enough about science to even understand the natural physical mechanisms that mitigate earth’s air temperature during its elliptical path around the sun. Carbon dioxide is increasing 1.78 parts per million per year. The theoretical scientific 100 year increase in radiation power per area is 1.97wpsm. The 100 year carbon dioxide increase in radiation power is 11.9 times smaller than the annual solar radiation power cycle but the global warming theory public policy advocates fail to explain why these same powerful natural physical mechanisms can’t also mitigate such a small determinant of the earth’s air temperature. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, The Third Assessment Report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis confirmed that human activity has no effect on the earth’s air temperature. Only a willfully ignorant progressive could read the first footnote for policy makers and still believe that human activity causes global warming or climate change. And only an irredeemably evil person could also still believe in the rest of the anti-human progressive agenda. In case you hadn’t noticed the progressives use fraud and use the coercive threat of physical violence by the government to advance their agenda.
The IP address for the earth’s annual absolute temperature cycle is: https://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/amsutemps/amsutemps.pl
Scroll down until you see the colored years. Select near surface temperatures channel 4, degrees Kelvin, and year 2006. Notice that for January the temperature is 258 degrees Kelvin and for July the temperature is 261 degrees Kelvin. When the earth is closest to the sun the earth air is 3 degrees Kelvin colder.
The IP address for Earth Orbit — Wikipedia is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_orbit
Notice in the second paragraph under the heading Events in orbit the following sentence. “The changing Earth-Sun distance results in an increase of about 6.9% (footnote 8) in total solar energy reaching the Earth at perihelion relative to aphelion.” Next scroll down to the table labeled Orbital Characteristics. The earth’s aphelion is 94.51 million miles from the sun and the perihelion is 91.40 million miles from the sun. The ratio is 1.034. Because of the inverse square rule the solar radiation power per area at the perihelion is 1.069 times higher than at the aphelion. 1.034 squared equals 1.069. (0.069*340.4wpsm=23.5wpsm) The difference in solar radiative forcing between July and January is +23.5wpsm and the earth’s air is 3 degrees Kelvin colder.
From the IPCC Third Assessment Report on Climate Change 2001 1st footnote from page 5 Summary for Policy Makers 1… http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fnspm.htm#1
“Climate change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. This usage differs from that in the Framework Convention on Climate Change, where climate change refers to a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and that is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.
Correction to previous comment. …the conduction-convection forcing factor has to be reduced 1.6 watts per square meter, (0.31*5.2=1.6). The other 69% of the energy comes from infrared radiation previously radiated directly to space.
Send the Texas Marshals in – with handcuffs!