DAVID BLACKMON IS AN ENERGY WRITER AND CONSULTANT BASED IN TEXAS. HE SPENT 40 YEARS IN THE OIL AND GAS BUSINESS, WHERE HE SPECIALIZED IN PUBLIC POLICY AND COMMUNICATIONS.
It has been an open secret for years now that big foundations funded by billionaire families like the Gates, Getty, and Rockefeller clans have played a big role in funding the various climate alarmist campaigns to vilify so-called “fossil fuels.” Lesser known until recently is the role these billionaire foundations play in convincing various government entities to travel down the same path.
Fox News reported this week that several billionaire interests, led by the Rockefeller Family Fund, put pressure on the New York Attorney General’s office during 2015 to target ExxonMobil with a subpoena for records related to an investigation into the company’s early research related to global warming. A series of leaked emails between Lee Wasserman, long-time director for the RFF, and then-New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman’s office first pitched the idea in early 2015. Schneiderman ultimately responded to the pressure, sending an initial subpoena to ExxonMobil in November that same year.
The RFF’s involvement in the push to pursue ExxonMobil extended into influencing and paying for media coverage. In September, 2015, Inside Climate News published the first in a series of articles under what it called its “Exxon Knew” series. The RFF funded that effort via multi-million-dollar grants to ICN and its parent, Lost Light Projects, as reported in the Daily Caller in 2016. In October that same year, RFF grants were also behind a series of articles jointly published by the Los Angeles Times and the Columbia School of Journalism, demonizing ExxonMobil. (RELATED: DAVID BLACKMON: Another Green Vehicle Pipe Dream Explodes Like The Hindenburg)
“We’ve spent years tracking the nexus between left-wing environmental groups and their billionaire funders, and this once again proves the connection between the financial, ideological, and political influences on the widespread legal attacks on the American energy industry,” Tom Pyle, president of the Institute For Energy Research, said in an email. “It’s clear that anti-oil sentiment in this country is being driven by this network of billionaires, activists, and politicians who show little concern for how their political campaigns hurt everyday Americans.”
The strategy behind the New York AG’s investigation evolved out of a meeting of climate activist organizations held in La Jolla, CA in 2012. There, a playbook was developed to attack the oil and gas industry using the same tactics that had been deployed against the tobacco industry starting in the 1980s. The plan’s success hinged on identifying and co-opting a “sympathetic state attorney general” willing to play the lead role in kicking off what would become an ongoing series of lawsuits targeting the industry.
The activists ultimately landed on Schneiderman as their most likely and most willing partner. When Schneiderman was forced to resign due to a personal scandal, his successor, current AG Letitia James, eagerly took up the torch. But the case was ultimately thrown out of court by the New York state Supreme Court, which characterized its claims as “hyperbolic.”
The RFF was in the news earlier this month when, on Feb. 8, The Wall Street Journal reported it and other left-wing billionaire interests – including Michael Bloomberg – were instrumental in pressuring the Biden White House to implement its January “pause” on the permitting of proposed new liquefied natural gas export facilities.
Citing sources “familiar with the effort,” the WSJ writers detail a billionaire-backed campaign that began four years ago to co-opt and organize local community activist groups to oppose new LNG export capacity even as U.S. LNG became such a crucial supply source for American allies in Europe in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine. The activists then worked to “buttonhole” administration officials at conferences and meetings around the world, pressuring them to freeze the process based on flimsy, hyperbolic climate alarm arguments similar to those behind the case against ExxonMobil.
“They got our attention,” one unidentified White House official is quoted as saying by the Journal.
Well, yes, they did, but to what end? While they are all promoted using lofty propaganda depicting these campaigns as efforts to curb the malleable concept of “climate change,” what these and other efforts by the RFF and their billionaire collaborators invariably boil down to is increasing the cost of energy for the masses, diminishing U.S. energy security, and making our country increasingly reliant on China.
Eventually, the only reasonable conclusion to make is that those outcomes are in fact the plan.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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The billionaire class should be the first ones to get to “net zero”. Lead the way, and buying carbon credits doesn’t count.
I’m already net zero, I bought 1,000,000 carbon credits on the internet for the princely sum of £0.00
I even have a certificate to prove it.
Could it be the ultimate case of short selling? “Sorry, we were wrong, we’ll buy back in, now it shows renewables can’t cut it”.
That has already been reported in the case of coal assets being purchased at low prices by the wealth behind campaigns to close coal generation plants or other aspects of the coal business.
More players in the CAGW drama, a complicated cast of characters. Perhaps it’s later generation atonement for the financial success of great grandpa. Or its a method of tax avoidance, supplying funds to 501(c)(3) corporations and research universities. Regardless, the money eventually ends up in the bank accounts of researchers, media figures, politicians, consultants, attorneys and entrepreneurs and their suppliers. Without this redistribution of wealth people would be more concerned with sun tan lotion and drinks with little parasols in them. In fact, most people still are, only those with a financial interest make any noise.
Lawfare is becoming a more wide used political tool. Letitia James going against Trump just had him slammed with a $355 million judgement.
Trump has been a Democrat before and may be a Democrat again.
Political parties are a tool of the rich, they believe in getting more money.
If Trump really thought it was political he would switch back in a second to keep his fortune.
Nah, even fortune-focused operators like Trump wouldn’t go Democrat.
You have to draw the self-esteem line somewhere, right?
Trump figured the GOP was easier to control.
https://twitter.com/PalmerReport/status/1759076590938689721
A travesty of justice if there ever was one.
A deranged, radical leftwing judge, and an attorney general filled with hate and no regard for the law, when attacking those she hates (I don’t think her basic vindictiveness is limited to Trump).
It’s out of Letitia’s hands now. Higher courts will decide this matter. In Trump’s favor, imo. Trump was convicted of fraud, when there is no fraud. Nobody was defrauded.
New York City and New York State are beset by a Biden/Illegal Migrant Crime Wave, but the New York Attorney General personally attends every day of Trumps trial with a triumphant smile on her face. How about locking some real criminals up, Letitia, for once?
Politicians as a rule are stupid! Most are lawyers (mostly ambulance chasers, few law firm partners) while few are doctors engineers or scientists; they don’t have a good understanding of the real world, just the world of backroom deals and the crumbs given out by the donor class! Expecting them to understand the realities of intermittent Ruinable Energy or the lack of broad public interest in the EV devolution is like expecting a child to solve quadratic equations!
Politicos generally do what the donor class tells them to; they try and find justification later if problems pop up like Enron or Solyndra! They are more than happy to keep on keeping on as long as the bribes (read campaign donations) continue! The billionaires look at the stupid laws enacted by the idiots in office and look for how to game the system to their advantage; the ones really getting screwed are John and Jane Q. Public who have to not only pay for the boondoggles, but have to live through the adverse consequences that anyone with half a brain could have foreseen! This is the result of a system that rewards failure and malfeasance in office, while punishing honesty and transparency. If politicians had to explain where ALL of their friend’s and families’ assets came from, the billionaire class would have a lot less sway over public policy and the public could perhaps prosper again!
Many if not most of those laws are designed by (the lawyers of) large foundations and large activists groups, then presented to congress by their lobbyists. Congress enacts them with little understanding of what is in those thousands of pages of opaque text.
Even a simple citizen Scientist in remote Australia can find material putting Rockefeller Foundation in a nasty position.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/18/corruption-of-science-by-money-and-power/
Geoff S
God bless Donald Trump.
That he has been so successfully pilloried for ‘Fraud’
The Enquiring Cynical Mind then wonders, where does the UK Government stand on:
and those are just for starters – ‘most everything uttered and actioned by UK Government of any/all colours over the last 30+ years has been lies, garbage, junk science and totally fraudulent
Mrs T was the last half-decent politician we ever had but the rot had set in when even she succumbed to ‘climate change’
sigh – as an excuse/method to actually try to ensure ‘Energy Security’
You’d think that billionaires might want to keep their status instead of ushering the world back into the 1800’s. How do they imagine they’re going to be entertained when all the future Hollywood set are having to work on a farm because there’s no diesel for farm equipment to run? How are they going to get jet fuel for their international gallivanting when the refineries are shut down? As the economy degrades their wealth will collapse due to bankruptcies and stock market crashes. They’re acting against their own self-interest; the lack of anticipation of second-order consequences beggars belief.
Well, it’s mostly the indoctrinated spawn that are too duluded to understand any of that, not their grandparents+ who built such empires, who are at the helm of such organizations now.
They lack the critical thinking skills to know they are sawing off the branch they are sitting on (and that their sitting on the part that will collapse if they succeed).
You have to ask, what is Gates’ plans, for buying a very large portion of US agricultural land?
Hewlett Foundation, Packard Foundation and George & Alex Soros also deserve some credit for this tsunami of self-interested and virtue signalling nonsense.
Of course, even Billionaires feel richer when the serfs are obviously starving.
In the UK we have Lord Hohn and his Climate terrorists and Jeremy Grantham with Imperial College. Both Hogn and Grantham are hedge funders, eager for more “Carbon Taxes”. Taxation of an invisible and essential trace gas? Plenty of opportunities for profit right there!
What I would like to know is where are all the Rightwing Billionaires, and why aren’t they trying to counter all this leftwing propaganda put out by Leftwing Billionaires, that is destroying the Western world?
Are there any real Rightwing Billionaires out there? You can’t tell it from here.
Biden said the other day that the United States had 1,000 billionaires. I wonder how their politics break down?
“Eventually, the only reasonable conclusion to make is that those outcomes are in fact the plan.”
When you have power, you will favor yourself even while claiming it is for the greater good. But favoring yourself in matters of power ensures blindness to self and rationalization to the point of blindness to consequences. The plan is to serve self and they don’t even see that, “… increasing the cost of energy for the masses, diminishing U.S. energy security, and making our country increasingly reliant on China” are just some of the consequences blind ego.
Do RICO statutes apply in this matter? Seems it would be pretty easy to prove the collusion/organization; if a short selling scheme cold be proven then it is racketeering.
Can a RICO action be brought privately (i.e., be the basis for a civil action?)
So why aren’t we going after the foundations which are acting like eco terrorists with their funding and influence peddling? They are obviously funneling money tax free into for profit ventures which would eliminate their tax advantaged influence. Go after them financially with audits. They are rift with corruption, money laundering and kickback funding.
If we can get a sane government to replace the Biden junta, they should immediately announce that organizations like Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and their ilk are being listed as terrorist organizations. That way, it would be illegal under U.S. law for any American or American organization to fund or otherwise help them. And it has the advantage of being true as well.
Climate policies that favor wind turbines and solar panels only generate occasional electricity but CANNOT make any products for society.
Almost never discussed is how to maintain the supply chain of cost-effective PRODUCTS that are essential to human flourishing.
Today’s materialistic world cannot survive without crude oil! Conversations are needed to discuss the difference between just “ELECTRICITY” from renewables, and the “PRODUCTS” that are the basis of society’s materialistic world. Wind turbines and solar panels are themselves MADE from oil derivatives, and only generate occasional electricity but manufacture NOTHING for society.
Until a crude oil replacement is identified, the world needs a back-up plan that replaces crude oil that will support the manufacturing of the products demanded by our materialistic society.
Please share this information with your friends to further enhance conversations about Energy Literacy as Breezes and Sunshine cannot manufacture anything. Electricity CANNOT exist without crude oil !
When the Keystone Pipeline was canceled it was the railroad that benefited. Who
owns that railroad? Warren Buffet. The Biden LNG policy is more of the same.
What, on earth, do they get out of it? If they trash the western economy, won’t it affect them too? Or have they got some form of insurance, that their super luxury lifestyles will continue?
This is an offshoot of Klaus Schwab’s WEF but it’s still all about power and control. Schwab would be wise to take a lesson the RFF group as La Jolla is a better meeting place than Davos.
The Left want to destroy to fossil fuel industry because it underpins capitalism; the American billionaire tendency wants to turn all those petro dollars going to arabs/nigerians/russions into electro-dollars going to …themselves. So for the time being they’re all working together to blow a hole in the status quo, under the banner of climate change. Of course they’ll fall out over the end game but, hey, one step at a time, right?.