If they're frauding you on climate science, they're probably more than willing to fraud you on all sorts of other important things:The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating how Exxon Mobil Corp. has valued its assets in the face of the current plunge in oil prices—and how it estimates theirfuture worth in a world of increasing climate change regulations, according to people familiar with the matter.Learn more about Exxon's climate science fraud at ExxonKnew.org.
The SEC sought information and documents in August from Exxon as well as the company’s auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The federal agency has also been receiving documents that the company submitted as part of a continuing probe into similar issues begun last year by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the people said.
The formal investigation is examining Exxon’s longstanding practice of not writing down the value of its oil and gas reserves when prices fall. Exxon is the only major U.S. energy producer that hasn’t taken a write-down or impairment charge since oil prices plunged two years ago. Peers including Chevron Corp. have lowered valuations by a collective $50 billion.
Exxon Mobil made more than $3 billion in profit per month in the first quarter of 2013 and its CEO says now is no time to go using less oil just because it's destroying our planet's climate:The CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. says there’s no quick replacement for oil, and sharply cutting oil’s use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would make it harder to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.Think about how much oil the world's poor consume. Are they buying cars and driving to work, or are they walking or biking? Would they be helped more by lower gas prices for cars they can't afford anyway, or by making small-scale clean energy more affordable - solar-powered local water filtration systems, home solar stoves, and better battery storage?
“What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?” CEO Rex Tillerson said at the oil giant’s annual meeting Wednesday.
Homes evacuated. Chemicals fouling the air. Wildlife soaked in tar sands oil. Could it happen in New England?As President Obama weighs approval of Keystone XL sometime this year, concern over tar sands oil has spread from the Midwest to New England. Hundreds of people rallied earlier this year in Portland, Maine, against even the possibility that such crude from Alberta, which environmentalists say is the stickiest and dirtiest form of oil, would wind its way through the pristine lakes, rivers, and rugged terrain of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Five years ago, Enbridge floated a proposal to reverse pipelines that currently send imported oil into the interior of New England from the marine terminal in Portland, Maine. Instead, Enbridge would transport oil from the tar sands of Canada to tankers in Portland, bound for southern refineries along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Enbridge managing director Steve Letwin said in a 2008 investor conference call, “We’re pretty excited about this opportunity,” because it was a much cheaper alternative for that company than building a new pipeline such as Keystone. [...]
[T]he endless Kalamazoo cleanup, and disputes now erupting in Arkansas as to how much damage is being done by that spill, raise inevitable questions that must be answered before anyone should contemplate reversing the pipelines through New England. Though Keystone is foremost in the mind of the White House, the EPA and NTSB should also take the time to assess the risk of bringing tar sands oil through one of the most beautiful and environmentally sensitive parts of the United States.Much stronger safety standards are clearly needed for existing tar sands pipelines, as the National Wildlife Federation and partners from Texas to Maine have called for. But the bigger question is, why are we letting America serve as the middleman to get Canadian tar sands to the international market at all?
Apologies for a lack of posts this week, was traveling to Arkansas for the National Wildlife Federation to monitor impacts of the Exxon Mobil tar sands pipeline spill. Read about my trip at the NWF blog.
Darryl Fears has a good piece in today's Washington Post taking a closer look at diversity in the environmental movement - or lack of it. Tough but fair. I work for an environmental organization and I agree green groups don't do nearly enough.
Rex Tillerson made $35 million last year selling you oil. Now he's urging you to invest not in clean energy but in helping poor people buy more of Exxon Mobil's oil.
I was watching Faces of Earth on the Discovery Communications-owned Science Channel this morning as it discussed finding fossil fuels, both coal mining and oil drilling. I was amazed at how the show didn't mention any negative effects of mining fossil fuels:
Exxon Mobil said Thursday its quarterly profit increased 38 percent as oil prices rose in the first three months of the year.
The company reported a profit of $6.3 billion, or $1.33 a share, in the first three months of the year. [...]
Exxon’s profit relied heavily on its exploration and production operation. Oil prices surged over the last 12 months, jumping from a low of $33 a barrel in the first quarter of 2009 to more than $80 a barrel this year.
The most hilarious part is ExxonMobil still finds a way to bitch about its lot in life. The corporation's website includes an issues page on "industry taxes," which threatens that energy innovation is already on the ropes because of excessive taxes, and it will be forever consigned to the dustbin by any new taxes on windfall profits (or, we'd assume, plans like President Obama's to close the offshore earnings loopholes that saved ExxonMobil from the IRS this year). "While our worldwide profits have grown, our worldwide income taxes have grown even more. From 2004 to 2008 our earnings grew by 79 percent, but our income taxes grew by 130 percent," ExxonMobil's flacks wrote, presumably while playing the world's smallest—and most expensive—violin.
Offshore oil drilling has a proven track record as a safe and effective means of acquiring energy. Oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico weathered hurricanes Katrina and Rita with little or no spillage, according to the National Ocean Industries Association.The "National Ocean Industries Association" is yet another industry front group that joined ExxonMobil to fund one of the worst global warming denier groups ever. So one polluter front group is quoting a lie from another polluter front group that Katrina and Rita caused no spills.
Drilling would help clean up the coastline. According to the National Academy of Sciences, 60 percent of the oil found in the North American marine environment comes from natural seepage through the ocean floor. Only 1 percent comes from offshore oil and gas development. Drilling and removal of oil allows for less natural seepage, hence cleaner beaches and a cleaner marine environment.Here's the problem: natural seepage happens in tiny amounts over long periods of time, while man-made spills happen all at once and in large quantities.
With absolutely outrageous lies like this, how can we believe anything Big Oil tells us about the dangers of offshore drilling or how much revenue we could expect from it? ExxonMobil will spill oil on your leg and tell you it's raining.
Have you ever read the Dr. Seuss book I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today? The Green Miles still has his yellowed copy. The Cat in the Hat's son confidently declares he can take on 30 tigers ... until 30 tigers show up and call his bluff.