“Exxon Mobil launched a legal counterattack Monday against seven cities in California that want state courts to force the oil company to pay for infrastructure improvements to help them adapt to climate change.
The oil giant argued that it and other Texas-based energy firms have become the target of a “conspiracy” among liberal state attorneys general and other officials seeking to blame it for driving up emissions that are causing the earth’s temperature to rise.
“ExxonMobil finds itself directly in that conspiracy’s crosshairs,” the company’s attorneys explained in legal documents filed in a Texas state district court Monday night.
“Even though it has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change, supported the Paris climate accords, and backed a revenue-neutral carbon tax, ExxonMobil has nevertheless been targeted by state and local governments for pretextual investigations and litigation intended to cleanse the public square of alternative viewpoints,” Exxon argued.”
Personally, I hope that our friendly “professional nutcase” Bill McKibben gets some fallout for this. Here’s Bill trying to shut down a gas station:
h/t to WUWT commenter “TA”
They are only a target…because they made themselves a target….you can’t please both sides…as long as they keep giving libs will keep demanding
Trying to serve two masters. Can’t be done.
Yup. Appeasement never ever works. Give an inch, they take a mile.
Give them an inch and they’ll think they’re a ruler
@Rud Istvan: “Yup. Appeasement never ever works. Give an inch, they take a mile.”
Give them an inch, they think they’re a ruler
Slower on the draw
And what would happen if they said, OK, we will no longer sell gasoline in CA?
BTW:
US oil companies make about five cents off a single gallon of gasoline, on the other hand US Big Government taxes on a single gallon are around seventy-one cents for US states & rising, the tax is now $1.00 per gallon for CA, that’s BEFORE FED. TAXES.
IOW, greedy US governments make fourteen to twenty times what oil companies make and it is the oil companies who make & deliver the vital product to the marketplace.
It’s Big Government, not Big Oil.
It’s not just ExxonMobil that has groveled before the Green Blob.
Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Total, Chevron and Statoil have all caved in.
US Federal gas tax is $0.183/gal. In Texas, state gas tax is $0.20/gal. Texas booted Democrats from state-wide offices in the 1990’s.
Similarly, Californians gets the government they elect.
Or, scientifically speaking, “if you don’t require them to prove the alternative hypothesis, you forfeit the scientific position and end up trying to prove a negative against a compulsive liar.”
Correct Latitude,
I liked Exxon much better under Lee Raymond – he was reportedly impolite and tough, but he had the courage to face down blatant falsehoods like global warming alarmism and not acquiesce to them.
The current crop of oil industry executives don’t seem to “own a pair” among the lot of them, and they are now reaping the reward of their cowardly surrender to green extortionists. They have cost their shareholders a fortune.
This is particularly true in Canada, where the energy industry has been hamstrung by lack of oil pipeline capacity, such that price differentials between US and Canadian crude’s have cost Canadians many billions of dollars.
A responsible Canadian oil exec would lead a lawsuit against these green extortionists and drive them into the ground.
However, that is not the nature of the modern CEO. Clearly, his “politically-correct” approach is not working. He should have taken Arnie’s advice of years ago: “Don’t be a girly man!”
This all started under Sexy Rexy Tillison panty waste Secretary of State. Have you ever seen their “pond scum” commercials inter-dispersed with every other alternative cave-in to the GREEN BLOB? Its enough to make you RALPH—sorry Ralph.
Yep. Their support for a carbon tax can be twisted around against them in court. I know the issue here is conspiracy and blackmail, not the merits of the underlying science or the merits of CAGW, but still.
“But…but….but..we PAID for those indulgences!”
The oil Industries have been dealing with rabble-rousing, tree-hugging lunatics for decades, because they are typically harmless and go away if it ignored; meanwhile paying attention to them, only encouraged them with free publicity and validation by acknowledging their presence and whining.
However the agw brand of climate change idiots, have proven to be significantly more dangerous in terms of agitating Global Hysteria, and so it was only natural for Exxon to try to ignore them as long as it could.
But now, like Popeye says, Exxon has exclaimed “that’s all I can stand, I can’t stands no more!” But they have a lot more green stuff than Popeye ever dreamed.
And we know what’s going to happen to the antagonist. And it’s going to hurt….THEM, while hopefully being very entertaining for the rest of us.
And Chevron deserves a lot of credit – it wasn’t covered much in the mainstream press, but Chevron led the way in launching a legal war against the eco-sabaterus, in it’s decades long fight against Donziger and his co-conspirators. Now THAT case would be a fantastic legal movie, except that it contradicts everything Hollywood believes in, and ends with absolute and total victory for Chevron’s legal team.
I was wondering why New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is so interested in climate change when he could be prosecuting all the corruption in his state’s government; instead of leaving it to the federal Justice Department.
Exactly. What Exxon and these other companies need to do is to shut the fuel off to these places that are suing them. I see NY city is now suing Exxon and three or four others companies in the exactly the same way. What it really amounts to is a raid on the pension plans and other share holders.
The lesson: don’t let misinformation fester. Your competing interests will not wait.
The only misinformation that matters, is silence on the fact that the agw alternative hypothesis has never been scientifically established against the natural null hypothesis. However this misinformation has festered indeed, because so few so-called scientists have asserted this elephant in the room, and therefore the Panic mongers claim that it doesn’t exist.
i just point out how the margin of error of all the compiling that goes into the “models” exceeds the geologic temperature range of the planet to begin with. That every single one of the models is just trying to find a signal in the noise and is wrong because of it.
#ImwithExxon
Yes it’s about time. The oil industry has gone on long enough letting others suffer the slings and arrows of the CAGW hysteria. The imminent threat of giving up some of their revenue finally did the deed but it had to happen sooner or later.
Exactly, they never should have went along with this bullshit in the first place trying to be ” good corporate citizens ” , they tried to please one side and placate the other thinking no one would notice or care. Wrong., you can’t please stupid, Especially stupid with a big mouth and lots of free publicity from big alarmist doners. Time to stand up and at the risk of pissing off women, be a man and take a stand. Be a leader , not a follower of this bull.
I assume that McKibben walked to the pump from his house? Surely he didn’t use a fossil fueled gasoline or electric car??
Bill needs to look up the verb ‘lie’ in a dictionary.
I doubt the meaning you’ve likely got in mind would be the one he’d see and quote
Take a look at the mess with industrial scale renewables in Vermont to see how Bill McKibben’s influence has impacted that state: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS_oUYOY2MY&feature=youtu.be
This documentary has just been released.
McKibben is no doubt one of those irrational lefties that we have all seen whose bicycles are strapped onto the backs of their cars. LOL
“Even though it has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change, supported the Paris climate accords, and backed a revenue-neutral carbon tax, ExxonMobil”
Rational people told you you were buying nothing with your submission. Your selling out makes me not care what happens to you now.
I care. Their product increases the carrying capacity of the Earth for Life despite their claims to the contrary.
Remember “hide the Decline?” Will nobody EVER point out that the complaint was “trees are growing and that’s horrible?”
“I care. Their product increases the carrying capacity of the Earth for Life despite their claims to the contrary.”
Are you aware that other companies produce the same product?
aka: shooting yourself in the foot
Gamecock,
Your quotation there says it all. When they submit to blackmail and scientific lies, they have no legs to stand on. Let them lie on the bed they made.
To adopt a quote from the latest Winston Churchill film, ‘Darkest Hour’, “You can’t reason with a tiger when your head is in it’s mouth”. Trying to appease the green ‘tiger’ has only left Exon Mobil more firmly clamped in it’s jaws. About time they started fighting back.
I believe Churchill also said something to the effect that: “The appeaser is the one who feeds the crocodile hoping he will be the last one to be eaten”. Churchill was probably talking about Neville Chamberlin’s appeasement of HItler at the time, but it probably applies to this issue today as well.
IMHO, ExxonMobil is sadly mistaken if it thinks appeasing the climate crocodile will lead to anything good. As long as Exxon keeps trying to appease, the crocodile is going to demand more and more until it thinks it has won.
they got bit they their own crockapoo
Sir Winston was talking about all appeasers. Appeasement throughout history has always failed. Appeasement trying to prevent war always leads to war. I learned first hand having sat across the table from left wing environmentalists trying to work out acceptable compromises. Give them what they want, even just lean in their direction and you most probably will regret it. I was brought in, and under orders, to work out compromises. We would compromise only to have the group go screaming to the news media, usually right after the meeting concluded, how terrible we were for not giving them everything they want right then. Because I had sat at the table I was attacked personally, called names, and even had my job threatened. They were/ are not honorable people. In fact I am sure they can not define the word “honor.”
@Edwin
You did good.
Your integrity is intact.
They are not honourable people. They are zealots.
Plonkers.
Or as Rudyard Kipling said it in “The Dane-geld”
“That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane”
There is the same problem in Canada, where Alberta thought they could buy peace from the AGW crowd by implementing new tax grabs based on carbon dioxide (not carbon, otherwise we might have to tax pencils) and then they would be able to build some pipelines. What those Marxists running Alberta did not realise is that the Greenies want to shut down the modern world and if you give them an inch they will take a mile and then charge you for it. Exxon should have realised the same thing (and I use the Queen’s English, so don’t tell me that I spelled realise wrong)
Realise and realize are both correct spellings. Different spellings of the same English, Canadian and U.S. words are all correct spellings. Like centre and center.
The Americans bastardised their language after the War of Independence. Then they foisted the incorrect spellings onto the Canadians, that wholely owned subsidiary to the North.
World Bank, Jan.29, 2016
Re: Carbon financing.
‘Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition: Release of Official Work Plan’
Link: ‘Download the CPLC Official Launch Event and Work Plan pdf’, (8 pages) Dated Nov.30, 2015 COP21
Includes California, Alberta, B.C., Quebec, Ontario and others. Includes photos.
Also available on the internet.
http://worldbank.org/en/topic/climatefinance/brief/carbon-pricing-leadership-coalition-release-of-official-workplan
Green Fiscal Policy Network
Members at:
http://www.greenfiscalpolicy.org/about-the-network
UN Environment / UNEP
Re: ‘Green Fiscal Policy Network’
Information at:
http://web.unep.org/greeneconomy/fiscal-policy
Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Germany
Carbon Mechanisms
Re: The Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition and carbon pricing launched 2015.
Webpage has information and links.
http://www.carbon-mechanisms.de/en/initiatives/market-development/carbon-pricing-leadership-coalition
Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC)
‘Leaders Unite In Calling For A Price On Carbon’
Panel members included: Gov. Jerry Brown (California) and others.
http://www.carbonpricingleadership.org/carbon-pricing-panel
For the Canadian audience.
Government of Canada, Nov.13, 2017, Bonn, Germany
News
READOUT
Re: Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC) & carbon pricing.
http://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/news/2017/11/readout_ministermckennaco-chairscarbonpricinggatheringchampionsp.html
Actually, their statement may be taken as an admission against interest”
“Even though it has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change….,” Exxon argued.”
Didn’t they just claim that they are directly involved in those risks and, as such, should be liable for foreseeable consequences. Their problem, imho, is by not attacking the fake science of AGW from day 1, they will only be litigating the extent of damages they, themselves, have admitted they’ve caused. All be bowing at the alter of the Left’s activists.
There will be other suits by the Left to counter this suit and they, for sure, will not be in Texas.
As far as their conspiracy theory, it’s not a crime for AGs to pursue the damages from the same company. Think tobacco.
There’s a big difference between oil and tobacco. The users of tobacco were seen as victims. Surely, the users of oil should be seen as willing accomplices.
It’s unfair for the AGs to sue just the oil companies. They should also sue everyone who burns oil … including themselves. They’ve known for decades that burning oil causes global warming and yet they continue to use it. Is it the oil companies’ fault that people burn their product rather than using it to make plastic or something that doesn’t cause global warming? If the public didn’t demand their product, they wouldn’t produce it. etc. etc.
Good point! Oh, and by the way most ‘plastics’ are made from fossil fuel feedstock – gas or oil. Now maybe if the wider public knew this simple fact they might think twice about anti-fossil fuel activists.
commieBob;
It’s unfair for the AGs to sue just the oil companies. They should also sue everyone who burns oil … including themselves.
Actually, Exxon should sue them. If the states involved have evidence that burning oil is dangerous, they should have made laws against it. They make laws against all manner of things that are dangerous in the interest of the public good. Since they didn’t, they have tacitly condoned the production of oil, and any liability incurred by Exxon for doing what the states said was perfectly legal should be paid for by the states.
I don’t know if that would fly in court, but GAWD it would be fun to watch some high priced lawyer spin it that way.
@ CommieBob
Rubbish.
“They’ve known for decades that burning oil causes global warming and yet they continue to use it.”
Your evidence for that load of rubbish is where?
Boy am I glad I had petroleum products to burn this week–and every week. It will be our only salvation as we enter into another Maunder Minimum. Maybe for the next 250 years glad I won’t be around.
“They” in this case refers to the AGs. I’m making the case that they should also sue themselves personally. If they believe in CAGW and they believe that EXXON is guilty because they produced the oil, that once burned, produced CAGW then they should admit that, by burning the oil, they personally directly caused CAGW.
I leave it to the AGs to prove that CAGW is real.
OK.
Point taken.
I also noticed that. Admitting to a key element of the oppositions lie won’t help their case.
Yes, I’m not seeing how conspiracy claims can be effective, given other nation-wide punitive taxes on many, many things. If proven effective, may we look for Big Alcohol, Big Soda and maybe even Big Hemp to step up?
What is the renewal period for an energy source to qualify as renewable energy? The renewal period for solar is 24 hrs going longer as the location gets closer to the polar region, hydro power one year, dendro from 20 to hundred year depending on the specie and climate, wind few minutes to days. From geologic perspective coal and oil is renewable energy with tens of millions of years renewal period. What makes geothermal energy a renewable energy?
Gravity?
Internal georadiation, maybe?
Auto
Gravity only to the extent that the falling rocks that made up the earth created a lot of heat, some of which is still escaping. However that ended some 4 billion years ago.
Geothermal heat comes from radioactive decay.
By definition renewable is non-fossil derived. Even peat is considered non-renewable.
Uh,,,peat is grass in the process of becoming low grade coal. How is that not a fossil fuel …or did the Scots and Irish just play the blame game a wee bit better?
Uh,,,peat is grass in the process of becoming low grade coal. How is that not a fossil fuel …or did the Scots and Irish just play the blame game a wee bit better?
I believe that is eo’s point. We are told that hydrocarbons and coal are non-renewable yet it is simply a question of timescale. CO2 from a smokestack/tailpipe will ultimately end up as organic material buried in sediment. If it takes 2, 20 or 200 million years to form the next oil deposit then as far as the earth is concerned it is renewable energy. To put it another way, even if humans sucked every drop of accumulated oil, burned every mcf of gas and cut every lump of peat from geologic deposits in the next 100 years, at some point in the future there will be new oil, gas and peat deposits formed.
The same argument cannot be made for nuclear energy which should remain classified as non-renewable.
nvw- “The same argument cannot be made for nuclear energy which should remain classified as non-renewable.”
Technically, nuclear energy is renewable in many reactor designs produce plutonium and other radioactives that can continue to support the fission.
In the end, everything decays and turns into iron, but neutron stars and other galactic phenomena can turn the iron back into the full spectrum of the atomic table by tearing iron nuclei into smaller fragments.
Renewable tends to mean sustainable rather than actually renewable. You don’t “renew” sunlight or wind; you get fresh batches. Sustainable means you get at least as much energy out of the device as it took to make it. That being the case it takes a long time for solar or wind to reach “break even”.
As long as the energy industry is willing to pay lip service to unsubstantiated claims about human derived CO2 emissions driving harmful global warming they are at risk of litigation through implied culpability. While I am glad that Exxon is fighting back, their statement leaves much to be desired. If they defined climate change as largely natural and argued on the science which supports that presumption then I would have no issue with the risks of climate change. Clearly climate change includes the possibility of a return to glacial coverage of a large part of the inhabited norther hemisphere landmass – now that is a risk. Similarly, shorter term climate shifts can have significant impacts such as those experienced during the little ice age (cold, crop failure, pestilence, human die-offs). IT would be important to point out that is climate change to colder conditions that is the major threat and that warming so far seems to be a pretty good thing for humans and the biosphere.
Any positive words they have for the Paris accord are misplaced, and support for a carbon tax must be explained through economic benefits of a consumption tax that effectively makes all consumer goods more expensive, kills jobs, enhances the ability of overseas competitors to outperform North Americans and is regressive in the sense it does more harm to the poor than the well off. Not sure they should be speaking up for that with out an airtight explanation.
I suspect they also have much invested in the ‘alternative energy’ scam and the resultant big time taxpayer subsidies they receive
Hence there absurd statements on climate change, Paris, etc.
This should be interesting to watch… don’t forget the popcorn :<)
Reality bites. AGW BS was fine with Exxon while they moved into natural gas, because the big AGW hurt was on their energy rival coal. But coal doesn’t have enough value left to be monetarily targeted by warming zealots. Exxon does. Richly deserved boomerang, and a belated Exxon OOPS. About time.
Popcorn futures up.
Amen.
bingo…we have a winner
Their feathers are ruffled because now its their goose that’s being plucked.
As a retired Exxon guy I gotta agree. Lee Raymond, the Exxon CEO before Rex Tillerson, had it right on Climate Change. Tillerson waffled and the new guy (Darren what’s his name) doesn’t have a clue.
Glad I got out when I did and sold my substantial stock holdings a while ago.
Great to have an affirmation from ‘ground zero’.
Respectfully, Exxon is so huge they could destroy countries. The green’s perusing them is just good PR for them and their donors. There is no ‘ground zero’, like common!. The scary part is legislation by the government, that is ground zero.
Wasn’t there on old saying, “united we stand, divided we fall.”
Ristvan you receive my vote for CRITICAL THINKER OF THE MONTH. We are brothers of another mother.
Anthony maybe you can start an award for most enduring comment of the month. All the pretenders in your neck of the woods start their back slapping awards for fantasy at this time of year–we real contributors to society need to acknowledge our greatness and our humility, of course.
But reality is not going to bite Exxon; it’s going to bite energy consumers. This is the tobacco settlement redux, which is exactly why the state AGs are involved — they provide the standing to claim damages in the form of projected climate change losses. Exxon won’t care as long as their competitors are subject to the same tax.
The tobacco settlement results clearly show the states’ claim they needed the money to pay for the cost of tobacco-caused illnesses was a lie — way less than half of all the settlement payments to the various states have been used for anything even remotely related to treating or preventing tobacco related illness. The settlement payments to each state were calculated as a tax per cigarette sold in that state, so the states have in effect a disincentive to reduce smoking in their populations.
The tobacco companies got an absolute shelter from any further lawsuits, so they were able to continue to do business with the blessing of the states, who took the money and spent it on whatever they pleased.
It was a wildly successful extortion job, and set the pattern for what we are seeing now with these AGW suits.
Don’t count on Exxon fighting back. As long as they can pass the extra cost on to their customers and all their competitors are similarly obligated, they will simply count it as part of the cost of doing business and sign the settlement.
Don’t count on the states spending any money they get in any way likely to reduce or prepare for or adapt to climate change.
Correctamundo. Exxon and other big oil companies were making a fortune replacing coal with natural gas. Also you can bet the Exxons of the world have armies of lawyers working overtime to figure out ways of gaming carbon exchanges and making a fortune off of them as well, so sure they like that idea – currently . Exxon was simply acting in its best economic interest. I’ve always believed Exxon would come out with guns blazing as soon as the CAGW focus went from coal to NG/Oil. Here we are.
The more direct way is that these California cities are lying in one of these legal matters—the lawsuit claim or their bond disclosures. The courts should not take kindly to this kind of behavior.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/01/climate-change-california-hypocrisy-turned-up-to-11.php
Apparently some cities in California have been claiming eminent danger of sea level rise in their Climate Change lawsuits but claiming the opposite in their prospectus for their bonds.
Oh the judge should just love that! So will Exxon’s attys.
From the link provided to ‘powerlineblog’:
One of the lawsuits, from San Mateo, claims ….
93% chance of a three-foot flood by 2050 …
and
3 feet of sea level rise by 2100
About 15 years ago states and others where paying a consultant to investigate the global warming induced risks for the entity. These were very similar, and in some cases the “copy and paste” aspects were glaringly silly.
I saved a couple of those but that was on an older MS WIN XP system and did not bring them onto my current computer system.
Those reports were on a climate related site with a 4-letter name, such as SSPS or SPSS, or maybe even PSSS.
Are there any helpful folks reading?
Anyway, the numbers quoted above are the sorts of things that were copied and pasted into these summaries. I doubt any of the county officials that got copies of these reports knew how or where these numbers were derived. Current county officials likely can’t explain them either.
Were I to question such a county person, I would want to see every bit of research and I would have experts available to show the lack of support for such nonsense.
You might like to view the director of the Sierra Club when he was put in the chair and asked such a question.
Sen. Cruz Questions Sierra Club President Aaron Mair on Climate Change
The simplest route is for Exxon to simply say that since ……… city or county believes our product is hurting them, we will immediately quit selling our product in their jurisdiction and encourage other suppliers to do the same.
That is a good suggestion.
Hey maybe all those Big Oil™ checks will start arriving now!
Exxon and the oil companies can stop all this AGW garbage in a week. Just stop producing oil, shut down gas stations, etc. Get rid of “evil fossil fuels” now. Immediately.
But they won’t.
[?? .mod]
They won’t because they would be bankrupt in days if they were to do that.
Beyond that, Exxon doesn’t own most of the stations that sell it’s gas. It has contracts with those who do, contracts that can’t be violated on a whim.
Ever hard of force majeure?
No, this should be done in slow motion. Simply do not renew the contracts as they expire in one of the states with AGs suing EXXON. When New York and California (and Connecticut and Illinois and whichever other junior partners were involved) start running out of gasoline, diesel, and heating oil and the prices necessarily skyrocket, certain minds will come to focus and this three ringed circus will close. The rest of the country can point and laugh while it happens. Though we will need to build a wall to keep the Californians and New Yorkers in place rather than polluting the other states with their bilge!
If they were to do that they would have to return the money paid by all the franchise holders.
As a Stockholder in Exxon Mobil they better not.
Tom,
I have seen many instances when the commenter shows a lack of understanding of the duties of directors and officers of corporations. Namely, these people owe fiduciary duties to corporate stockholders and to the corporate business entity itself.
That ought to be enough key words for someone to learn more.
I no longer try to explain.
Within a mutual fund, we also own E/M stocks. Total stock market or any large company fund will have E/M stock.
Tom, as a stockholder, you have common cause with hundreds of thousands of non-shareholders. As of last June Cal STRS held $778,711,000 worth of E-M stock. That helps pay my retirement, and the retirement of every other California teacher in the system. And that’s only one of very many institutional investors.
I have to pay for the DAs pursuing Exxon. I have to pay higher energy prices to defend. I have to pay for the the gym membership to work off all the popcorn i am going to eat.
Rob
Top post.
Spilled a little wine!
Auto.
Reload!
“Blinded by their need for social acceptance, they submitted without question, one by one, falling into darkness. And now they are slaves to the alarmist’s will. They are the Green Blob, Carbonwraiths, neither living nor dead. At all times, they feel the presence of the hydrocarbon, drawn to the power of the gas. They will never stop hunting you.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
++++ a bunch.
And always searching for the One fuel to rule them all…
The one Fool? Would that be Al Gore?
One Fool to rule them all
One Fool to find them
One Fool to call them all
and into darkness bind them
I put a copy of the whole petition for this case in my Dropbox — hopefully, the link works:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/01gk0zrs3n4bxhe/ExxonDepositions.pdf?dl=0
It’s an interesting, 61-page, legal document that I have just started reading. Here’s a long quote [bolding mine] to give a idea of it:
For years, special interests and opportunistic politicians identified disfavored
speech about climate change as an obstacle to their political agenda and conspired to use state
power and civil litigation to suppress viewpoints unaligned with their own. They identified
ExxonMobil as a primary target and have worked with state attorneys general and other
politicians to commence investigations and litigation against ExxonMobil for the improper
purpose of coercing the company to parrot their perspective on the risks of, and appropriate
policy responses to, climate change. Appearing to be following this playbook, five California
municipalities have filed tort complaints against ExxonMobil and others for harms caused by
alleged sea level rise, even though these same municipalities’ bond disclosures are silent or
express uncertainty about any such harms. The disconnect between allegations made in the
lawsuit and the risks disclosed in the bond offerings suggests that these lawsuits were filed for an
improper purpose and not because of a bona fide belief in the harm alleged. ExxonMobil
respectfully requests pre-suit discovery to uncover the municipalities’ motives and to determine
whether legal action in Texas is warranted, as well as to perpetuate testimony for an anticipated
suit in Texas.
At the moment, I agree that the company set themselves up for what it alleges as a possible “conspiracy”.
Trying to be understanding of or favorable to their customers’ concerns seems to have backfired big. Proving hypocrisy in claims against the company would be great.
Well, I guess I’ve lost my Dropbox capabilities. The previous link does NOT work. Guess I’m getting rid of Dropbox now, because the traffic limitations that cause links to get banned are unacceptable. Boo, hiss, Dropbox !
Let’s try it this way:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AuUK0qc7jEQygXPKXI2axKwU_OnX
Sea level rise, huh? They can’t prove Exxon caused that because they can’t even prove that burning fossil fuels has any effect on the Earth’s weather or sea levels.
Maybe the municipalities will call in the Big Guns like Hansen to testify and provide us some proof that humans are causing the sea levels to rise. That’s what it would take for them to win their lawsuit.
This may seem a little off-topic. Oh, heck, it is off-topic. But isn’t McKibben’s clean shaven face, as depicted in the photo of his protest (a generous description), damaging to the Earth. You know, and I know, he is far too much of a wimp to use a recyclable straight edge razor. So he’s either using disposable safety razors torn from the bowels of the Earth and puked back in her face, or horror of horrors, he’s using an … electric shaver?!
Hopefully, he recycles the paper he uses to make the sign, and donates his used clothing, and has water-saving flush mechanisms in his toilet, … walks a lot instead of driving, … eats a diet rich in foods derived from processes with small “carbon foot prints”, … etc., etc.
Another possibility is she ain’t really a man. [Pregnant Pause]
The best part is the suit was filed in.. drum roll .. TEXAS !!
McKibben, the poster boy for CLIMATE HYPOCRISY.
I think that Blinky Bill simply comes across as a complete idiot – how he got to be the poster-child for 350.org is beyond me.
Tick, tick, tick! (A Blinky Bill reference – if you are not aware of it, YouTube Bill McKibben 350.org Tick Tick).
Hmm, that “tick tick tick” video seems to have disappeared some time in the last 10 years or so. Sorry about that! If anyone can find a link, please advise, as I’d like to add it to my collection!
He got there by being the society gossip columnist for The New Yawker. I kid you not.
A little sign for Weepy Bill McGibbon..
These states know where to go to find money. You will see more of this as their wasteful ways catch up with them and they are left with no other option.
They could use the 97%!! of C02 is naturally produced.
Of the remaining 3% show how much they are responsible for (not much).
Exxon’s timing is well thought out. They know there is no justice for oil companies, only politics. This will end up in the supreme court and Exxon will win with a 5-4 decision because Trump choose the most recent Justice. If Hillary had made the appointment the her fellow criminal corrupt liberal’s would have won.
I welcome these AG’s making their case in a court of law.
They have no chance but will encourage a settlement.
Exactly
So many adages were ignored. You can’t serve two masters and do an outstanding job for both. I think of Gandalf standing on the stone bridge in Moria, striking his staff, and saying “You shall not pass!”. He didn’t then step back. If he had, he would have been forced to repeat it, and step back again. Where would he have ended up?
If Neville Chamberlin and Stalin had told Hitler, draw back to your borders and do not invade your neighbors again, how many millions of people would have stayed alive. You must stand up for your convictions with courage and the will to not give up.
Do business people and scientists not have to take ethics courses these days? Many, many years ago as a senior in EE I had to take one and it gave me a good education on how to deal with gray areas and questionable situations. It doesn’t seem today that CAGW folks spend even a second thinking about what the costs they demand will do to possibly millions of people.
Hitler and Stalin were allies at the start, as shown by their coordinated attack on Poland.
Please don’t misinterpret what I said. I’m sorry if I didn’t explain myself well. Stalin was a evil person. If he had been upstanding and done what he should have done, many, many people would have lived. There are a number of saying that address karma. What goes around, comes around. Ain’t karma, a bitch. You’ll reap what you sow.
Jim. Wouldn’t it have been even better if FDR had been there with a strong military to back up their demand. The Japanese would probably not attacked either. How many people and cities would have been spared? Michael Lewis Quote: “The only thing history teaches us, a wise man once said, is that history doesn’t teach us anything.”.
Maybe the quote is from Hegel?
I’ve read reports that the Japanese leadership was convinced that if they were able to successfully attack Pearl Harbor, the Americans would immediately sue for peace. They believed this based on the fact that America had dramatically shrunk the size of the military after WWI and the efforts made to appease Hitler.
As well as American and British inaction towards previous Japanese acts of aggression.
Targets are designed by civil engineers.
Weapons are designed by mechanical and electrical engineers.
That’s racketeering, right? Betcha that racketeering laws didn’t envision that government bodies would be doing the racketeering, but that’s liberals for ya.
I worked for a global metals mining group in the 70s, who went heavily green to deal with the rise of green activism at that time. That same company now realises that move was a major mistake, and they didnt realise the green idealogues would not stop at just a single compromise, and just move on to the next issue.
The company now openly states it should have originally taken the green groups head-on and not allow them to entrench their totalitarian views with the public and the media. This particular company has now actually rolled back some of its earlier positions.
Once agin, if things go to court, the discover process will be quite enlightening when damages are attempted to be proven. Show me the justification=Money!
Here’s a very good and concise explanation of this story.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/01/climate-change-california-hypocrisy-turned-up-to-11.php
These crusading politicians really must assume everyone else is stupid. Sue Exxon for the certain damage from rising sea levels, etc. and then tell potential investors in their bonds that that was unlikely.
Now with Trump in office they stop cow towing since it bit th m in the hind quarters anyway. The tide of political correctness flows in the other direction but the damage they did themselves cannot easily be undone.
EXXON executives rolled the dice , tried to play nice , and are paying the price .
Stupid , Stupid move .
You’re a poet and don’t know it, Amber.
Amber: I agree on the face of it, “tried to play nice”. Here’s another view of it. They selfishly tried to get special treatment by paying lip service instead of fighting for what is the right to produce a product that is good for the health and vigor of the USA.
“Even though it has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change, supported the Paris climate accords, and backed a revenue-neutral carbon tax….
Twats.
That was your first, second, and third biggest mistakes.
I’m still looking for the appropriate Darth Vader meme, but this will do for now:
These AGs aren’t really expecting a tobacco style settlement. This is all about signalling their virtue so they can make the next rung up the political ladder, perhaps even governor! They will milk this for all the publicity that they can get, and then when it gets difficult, the lawsuits will be quietly settled. Maxine Waters is pursuing a similar strategy with her Imprach Trump campaign to draw attention away from her public corruption problems while giving her political capital to withstand the accusations.
Exxon Mobil have only themselves to blame .
Appeasement is a futile exercise with the green blob as has been pointed out by other contaminators.
The big problem is that the share price and dividend is the driving force underlying all decisions made in the board room .
Some times a major hit is worth taking to secure long term profits .
The directors need to grow some balls and take states head on and if they insist on suing for the so called harm that oil derived fuels are causing to the climate they have to withhold deliveries of fuel to these states and make sure that all other suppliers are doing the same .
It might cost a few billion but can anyone imagine the chaos that this would cause and the attorneys would soon be screaming for the fuel to be turned back on .
Or maybe they would petition the UN to force the oil companies to turn on the taps .
This was in our news papers today .
A lawyer for a convicted murderer in New Zealand went to the UN to get compensation for him because had asked to be put into solitary confinement and he was held there for 19 days and the longest that some one can be held in solitary is 15 days under some obscure convention ..
The UN ruled that the murderer should be compensated $20000 only $5000 per day and he had demanded to be held in solitary , .
The world is getting crazier every day .
DeLoss McKnight:
I disagree; I believe another tobacco settlement is exactly what these AGs want. The tobacco settlement worked out extremely well for the states: ~$200 billion over 25 years — not a bad return on their litigation costs. Plus they got the PR benefit of fighting the evil tobacco companies. Hardly anybody recognizes it for the extortion job that it was or that the money is coming from smokers’ pockets instead of tobacco company profits.
This is an attempt to impose a fuel tax by litigation while appearing to save the world. It’s a win-win for greedy politicians. Expect more of it.
Alan: Oh, I expect we’ll see a lot more litigation; that’s the world we live in today. I agree too that it’s an attempt to get a fuel tax without the bother of voting for it. And maybe the oil companies will cave in and go for a settlement without a fight. Litigation is hideously expensive and bad publicity. I agree that the AGs would LOVE such a capitulation. But if the oil industry does fight, they will have a much better outcome than the tobacco companies. The benefits of oil and measurable and enormous. Proving that CO2 is harmful to the environment will be much harder than smoking causes cancer and numerous other health problems. The tobacco settlements came after decades of thousands of product liability lawsuits. The tobacco industry saw the settlement as a way to end those lawsuits. The oil industry hasn’t had this kind of problem to the magnitude that the tobacco industry. Their lawyers will be quite capable of defending their interests, as you can see from this opening salvo. Unlike the tobacco litigation, the AGs know they would have an enormously difficult time proving a case in court, lasting far longer than the typical AG stays in office. That’s why I think this is more of a PR stunt than a serious attempt. Unlike certain other predictions, this one should be falsifiable in our lifetimes (hopefully!). From the sidelines we’ll have fun watching how this plays out.
As an aside, thank you very much for all of the work that you and the other moderators do to make this blog work. It has been very educational for me, a non-technical layman. And while there are some ad hominem remarks here, for the most part the level of discourse is erudite and civil. That’s hard to find on the inter-tubes.
No response yet to a FOI request against Oakland about the claims made in the original lawsuit.
http://records.oaklandnet.com/request/23205
The Exxon deposition is here: https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ExxonDepositions.pdf
All US oil companies should stop providing product to states that sue any one of them ( seeking to blame it for driving up emissions that are causing the earth’s temperature to rise.) until the case is settled.
If the case is proved against oil….no one supply’s into that state…for ever (for the good of the climate), then if officials try to buy any oil products for the state, then they can also be sued for damaging the climate.
On the other hand if case fails, it’s business as usual – enshrined in law.
We use embargoes & blockades to make rouge country’s see sense…why not rouge states.
We have them over an oil barrel.
by “rouge state” I assume you mean a Republican one? 😉
[One hopes that he actually meant rogue and not red… 🙂 -mod]
I messed up my first adjustment with a typo- please flush previous effort down the memory hole.
I liked the RETROCACTIVELY
The reality is that there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific reasoning to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really zero. It is not the fossil fuel companies that have been burning fossil fuels but rather those who have been actually buying and using the fossil fuels which has all been legal to do. If anyone is at fault it should be those who actually burned the fossil fuels whose money has kept the fossil fuel companies in business. If the burning of fossil fuel is so bad then it is the duity of government to completely ban the practice. Government should make it illegal to poseess or make use of any goods and or services that make use of fossil fuels. That includes clothing, food, housing or even surfaces made from materials transported by means that have made use of fossil fuels. Take it a step further we must consider that H2O is the primary greenhouse gas and is also produced by the burning of fossil fuels. Maybe government should ban the possession or use of H2O or any substances involving H2O as well. We the people need to be protected from all greenhouse gases including CO2, H2O, O3, and oxides of nitrogen. Anything involving the atoms, H, C, O, or N shiould be baned. Removing all such atoms from the Earth’s atmosphere will definitely result in cooling as the surface pressure is reduced to near zero.
Exactly, we should pass a Prohibition Amendment against water.
It’s just as rational as anything else about the global warming movement.
As far as sea level rising, there is no question that the Earth’s temperature did increase for a while, and naturally that cause some Antarctic runoff which likewise temporarily would add to sea levels. However with the decline of temperatures, that will begin to reduce eventually as Antarctic land ice likewise accumulates; but this only happens at a very slow rate of about 2 inches of snow per year, which only equates to about a quarter inch of rain or ice. So it was simply melting faster than it increased, due to natural causes. But now that the records show that thawing stopped from a respite in temperatures, we should begin to see a reverse. It’s just one more natural cycle where Chicken Little thinks that the sky is falling because night fell.
Looks like the AGW kooks poked the bear one too many times. And now it has woke from hibernation, and it is hungry.
About time, I say.. good riddance to them.
And by the bear, I mean Big Oil. It was only a matter of time.
This will be played out in the courts, notably the 9th Circuit, which was packed with Lefties and Green Weenies long before Obama loaded the dice, nationwide.
Despite any obstacles, it’s about time Exxon started fighting back.
Maybe Rex Tillerson doesn’t have a genuine pair, after all.
All lower federal courts exist solely at the pleasure of Congress. Only SCOTUS has constitutional authority to exist independently of the other branches. This means that a strong conservative majority in the houses would have a nuclear option against activist judges: a bill to disband and reorganize the entire lower federal court system.
I always pay attention to ristvan.
My favorite part of the Exxon motion is the point about the duplicity of the California cities that sued Exxon. The motion notes that, for instance, “San Mateo, claims: “There is a 93% chance that the County experiences a devastating three-foot flood before the year 2050, and a 50% chance that such a flood occurs before 2030. Average sea level rise along the County’s shores are expected to rise by almost three feet by the year 2100, causing multiple, predictable impacts, and exacerbating the impacts of extreme events.” Yet, when the recent bonds were offered “At least two municipal governments [one of them San Mateo] reassured investors that they were “unable to predict whether sea-level rise or other impacts of climate change or flooding from a major storm will occur, when they may occur, and if any such events occur, whether they will have a material adverse effect on the business operations or financial condition of the County and the local economy.”
So did San Mateo lie to the court [in its lawsuit] or lie to investors [in their prospectus]?
Why not both?
Sounds like a good argument in favor of Exxon-Mobil during preliminary hearings. Hard to prove potential future damages when your main argument is retroactively damaged by your own words
Now New York City is divesting its pension fund of oil stocks. Mayor DeBlasio announced that the city is going to sue five oil companies for the presumed effects of climate change which he claims they knew about years ago…..
https://mobile.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/01/10/us/ap-us-fossil-fuel-divestment.html?referer=https://www.google.com/.
Monkey see, monkey do.
What comes after an infrastructure spending claim? Why pensions and other extended debt obligations and the tab for vote buying come next.
You can participate. Anyone who has bought bonds from one of the cities participating in the lawsuit, and perhaps even if one of your funds has done so, can sue the city for fraud.
In the lawsuits against EXXON, they claim there will likely be all sorts of damages to their city from global warming, yet in the bond offerings, they say they have no idea what will happen.
For example, here’s Oakland:
“The city is unable to predict when … sea rise or other impacts of climate change could occur, when they may occur, or if any such events occur, whether they will have a material adverse effect on the business operations or financial condition of the city or local economy.”
Yet when suing EXXON,
“Global warming has caused, and continues to cause accelerated sea level rise in San Francisco Bay and the adjacent ocean with severe, potentially catastrophic consequences for Oakland.”
“By 2050, a ‘100 year flood’ in the Oakland vicinity is expected to occur… once every 2.3 yrs…by 2100… almost once per week.”
Source Powerlineblog.com
You can’t placate hate – you’d think Exxon would have figured that out by now.
Although, I think also they’re simultaneously trying to exploit the issue to their own gain .
Exxon is fighting back in a lawsuit filed against them by 7 California cities. Exxon has accused them of defrauding investors over the last 27yrs on $8 BILLION of infrastructure bonds used in flood prone areas! That’ll get their attention. Of course the mayor of Imperial Beach (south of san diego) says Exxon is just bullying them. lol.
The only question in my mind is did Bill drive to the servo?
Just read the whole 61 pages of the disposition and Exxon has got the crooks bang to rights for defrauding their stockholders. Blood
The Decurity and Exchange Commisdion has to demand all these cities and other Calif bond issuers amend their issue statements and any new bonds must deal with this now.
Check Mate
Security
Exxon has nothing to be ashamed of. They dont extract the oil/gas and burn it themselves for fun. The burning is done by ordinary peoble who likes the benefit of the warmth and electricity the burning provides.
Even if it would not happen, it would be fun if Exxon stopped all operations in Ca, becuse they apparently don’t want it.
I am not sure about that. California has lots of cars. That is lots of revenue to lose.
so now New York is suing them too ?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/new-york-city-lawsuit-fossil-fuel-companies-1.4482073
Ayup, definitely time to stop selling ANY and EVERY fossil fuel based energy to New York City.
The city that would need more than half the land area of Long Island to power it through Solar Panel Power.
Oil Companies Should Stop Supplying New York City
By cutting off Oil to NYC is will provide the needed motivation for either 1) liberals grow up and start living in the real world or 2) they turn to their friends in the Sierra Club and Rockefeller Foundation to provide a viable alternative. In reality, this war on climate change is nothing more than the Tobacco Settlement 2.0. Liberal organization can’t survive on their own, they require looting of the productive sectors of our economy. Liberals depend upon taxes, donations, contributions, fundraising and lawsuits. They reject the Free Market, so they don’t strive to discover commercially viable solutions to today’s problems, they rely on public campaigns to support looting those industries that actually produce something.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/01/11/oil-companies-should-stop-supplying-new-york-city/
Many Thanks for all of the interesting comments. I am only noting here that I found this link from Robert Turner to be helpful to me on first glance. http://pages.mtu.edu/~scarn/teaching/GE4250/absorption_lecture.pdf
The cities are in denial about their own incompetence and are hoping to use tax payers money to flush out some cash .What’s the down side ? Only that the cities pension fund bombs are about to disintegrate and their mismanagement of public funds are going to be exposed .Desperate times . Maybe they budgeted carbon tax money a little to generously like they did their expected pension investment returns .
Walk the talk suing cities, tell voters you are going to help set the worlds temperature by banning fossil fuels then call an election on it . Adios idiots !