Competitive Enterprise Institute's Climate Denial Efforts Target Media, Cities Filing Liability Suits

authordefault
on

By Karen Savage, Climate Liability News.ย Crossposted fromย Climate Liability News.

The conservative think tankย Competitive Enterprise Instituteย has been busily pressing forward with its mission to promote climate denial, using high-profile tactics like full-page ads in major newspapers. But it is also working behind the scenes, filing records requests to dig for information from cities filing climate liability suits and academics studying theย topic.ย 

As the science has grown definitive in tying global warming to the burning of fossil fuels, even oil companies have been forced to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus and back away publicly from climate denial efforts. But CEI continues to double down on their mission to claim the science is notย settled.

CEI made a splash this week by purchasing full-page ads in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal taking issue withย Meet the Pressย host Chuck Todd and NBC for refusing to give airtime to denialists during hisย Dec. 30 showย about climate change.ย ย 

The think tank hasย deep tiesย to the fossil fuel industry and has long worked to promote climate denial. And as municipalities have begun to sue fossil fuel companies, including Exxon, CEI has filed briefs and launched other campaignsย defendingย them.

According to Kert Davies, founder and director of the Climate Investigations Center, CEIโ€™s most recent push is likely motivated by the increasing number of those lawsuits and investigations of the fossil fuelย industry.

โ€œCEI has a personal interest in how these lawsuits proceed because they had a contract with ExxonMobil Foundation from the 1990s โ€” they got over $2 million through 2007 when Exxon abruptly dropped them,โ€ said Davies, adding that he expects lawyers pressing suits against the company would want to see the contracts between CEI and Exxon during thatย period.

CEIโ€™s tactics go beyond its attempts to sway publicย opinion.

Last year, CEI sued UCLAย to obtain emails the organization said were exchanged between two UCLA climate law professors and state attorneys general offices involved in investigations of the oilย giant.

An ethics complaint filed byย another fossil fuel industry-backed groupย in December against then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood echoes aย reportย written by CEI legal fellow Chris Horner. The report relied on public records requests to allege that attorneys general are involved in a coordinated scheme by private interests to hold oil giants responsible for climate change. That alleged conspiracy includes Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who is also investigating Exxon for possibleย fraud.

Horner has also filed information requests with municipalities filing suit against the oil and gas industry, including Richmond and San Francisco. In those requests, he is seeking records related to a climate litigation-related briefing he said took place at Harvard in 2016 between activists, private attorneys and public employees of various statesโ€™ attorney generalโ€™sย offices.ย 

In July, he requested communication belonging to staff members in the Rhode Island attorney generalโ€™s office, after it became the first U.S. state to attempt to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate change by filing suit against 21 oil and gas companies. Hornerโ€™s request was for communication between special assistant attorney general Greg Schult, senior policy advisor Matthew Lenz and legal experts involved in climate litigation in other municipalities, including attorney Matthew Pawa, Niskanen Center chief counsel David Bookbinder and director of climate policy Josephย Majkut.

Horner is also on the board of directors of the non-profitย Government Accountability and Oversight, the organization behind Climate Litigation Watch, which posts public records obtained in an attempt to โ€œexpose the network of influence involving the litigation surrounding climateย change.โ€

CEI has used full-page ads in major newspapers in previous campaigns to try to discredit climateย action.

In one ad that appeared in The New York Times in 2016, CEI โ€” along with more than 40 signatories โ€” claimed that attorneys general across the country were abusing their power by attempting to silence the โ€œdebateโ€ on climateย science.

Protesters with signs saying 'Exxon knew about climate change since 1981. Denied it anyway.'
Exxon Knewย Credit:ย Johnny Silvercloud,ย CCย BYSAย 2.0

Between 1997 and 2014, those signatories and the organizations they representย receivedย more than $10 million from Exxon and the ExxonMobil Foundation and theyย receivedย more than $21 million from the Koch brothers, who have long funded climate denial efforts in support of their fossil fuelย businesses.

Today, full-page ads in theย Washington Postย can cost $100,000 and more. Ads in theย Wall Street Journalย can topย $325,000.

In aย press release, CEI said the ads push back on Todd and NBCโ€™s decision to โ€œexclude guests who disagree with alarmists and calls for a real and open debate about the impacts of climate alarmistย policies.โ€ย 

โ€œSometimes, journalists like Chuck Todd are persuaded to join the activists in shutting down legitimate debate about policy issues and in those cases, we feel a duty to push back in defense of our rights and our policy positions,โ€ a CEI spokesperson said in an email, adding that the organizationโ€™s requests for public records are made on their own initiative, and as part of this body of work defending theirย principles.

โ€œAmericans of all political stripes tune into NBCโ€™sย Meet the Pressย with the expectation that the great political issues of the day will be debated vigorously by guests representing a full range of viewpoints,โ€ said CEI Presidentย Kent Lassman.

Because CEI does not disclose its donors, itโ€™s unclear who is funding the current ads, but it has previously received funding directly from David Koch, as well as coal giantsย Massey Energy Companyย andย Murray Energy Corporation.ย ย 

ExxonMobil was a publicly-acknowledged contributor to CEI for a number ofย years.

โ€œIn 2006, however, ExxonMobilย publicly announcedย that it would cease its support for CEI and a number of other groups,โ€ a CEI spokesperson said in anย email.

NBC did not respond to a request forย comment.ย 

The ads fit into a long-running strategy to cloud the issue of climate science to theย public.ย 

CEI was named in a 1998ย emailย to the American Petroleum Instituteโ€™s global climate science communications team as a possible funding recipient in a campaign to implement a โ€œClimate Actionย Plan.โ€ย 

Text from the American Petroleum Institute memo on sowing doubt about climate change.
One conclusion of the โ€œGlobal Climate Science Communications Plan,โ€ย a multi-million dollar proposal in 1998 to make climate change a โ€œnon-issueโ€ by reaching out to media and the public. The plan wasย uncovered and documented by Greenpeace. Credit: Greenpeaceย 

According to that plan, โ€œvictory will be achievedโ€ when people and the media are convinced there is significant uncertainty in climate science and โ€œmedia coverage reflects balance on climate science and recognizes the validity of viewpoints that challenge the current โ€˜conventionalย wisdom.’โ€

Davies said in addition to potentially having to face an examination of its relationship with Exxon in the course of climate litigation, CEI has otherย concerns.

Davies pointed to a study published this week showing Greenlandโ€™s ice isย meltingย fasterย than previously thought and a recent Yaleย pollย showing that 73 percent of people in the U.S. understand climate change is occurring and 62 percent understand it is mostlyย human-caused.

โ€œThe evidence is in front of people, the weatherโ€˜s messed up, the climateโ€™s messed up, the public opinion is moving away from CEI, and then they strike out at a national news broadcast for not including this extreme minority opinion that thereโ€™s nothing to worry about,โ€ Daviesย said.

Main image: Sign about what Exxon knew about climate change.ย Credit:ย John Duffy,ย CC BYย 2.0

authordefault

Related Posts

on

DeSmog estimates raise questions over climate benefits as EU officials consider whether the technology should qualify for billions of euros in subsidies.

DeSmog estimates raise questions over climate benefits as EU officials consider whether the technology should qualify for billions of euros in subsidies.
Analysis
on

Experts accuse Farageโ€™s party of a โ€˜deliberate campaign of misinformation about climate changeโ€™ in the House of Commons.

Experts accuse Farageโ€™s party of a โ€˜deliberate campaign of misinformation about climate changeโ€™ in the House of Commons.
on

A Conservative peer and former UK trade advisor were among those who spoke at the summit.

A Conservative peer and former UK trade advisor were among those who spoke at the summit.
on

All Conservative appointees to the Board of Trade have been binned by the new Labour government.

All Conservative appointees to the Board of Trade have been binned by the new Labour government.