ExxonMobil lobbyists filmed saying oil major’s climate policy a PR stunt

A lobbyist for ExxonMobil stated in an aired interview recorded by undercover Greenpeace activists that the company was still fighting efforts to tackle climate change in the U.S., despite publicly claiming to support the Paris climate agreement.

The lobbyist told Greenpeace that ExxonMobil supports a carbon tax publicly for the simple reason that it believes it would never gain enough political support to pass as a law.

ExxonMobil’s senior Washington-based lobbyist Keith McCoy told the undercover Greenpeace reporter that: “There is not an appetite for a carbon tax. It is a nonstarter. And the cynical side of me says, ‘Yeah, we kind of know that.’ But it gives us a talking point that we can say, well what is ExxonMobil for? Well, we’re for a carbon tax“.

When asked by the reporter: “So it’s basically never going to happen right, is the calculation?” He replied: “Yeah. No, it’s not, it’s not. Carbon tax is not going to happen”.

He added that other members of the oil industry that have recently announced their support for a carbon tax – such as the American Petroleum Institute (API), an influential lobby group – did so because “they’ve got nothing else, so it’s an easy talking point to say, look I’m for a carbon tax”.

“So that’s the talking point, that is in my mind an effective advocacy tool. Many members of Congress can say, well we don’t believe you, and we’ll say well yeah, we’ve been saying this for over a decade and we’re not new to this. API is new to this, some of these other companies are new to this, but at ExxonMobil, we’ve been saying this for a decade. I think the carbon tax is an effective way of saying to them [members of Congress]: put up or shut up”, McCoy told the reporter.

During the interview, McCoy was asked whether Exxon’s support for the ‘talking point’ of a carbon tax makes it easier for the company to oppose more punitive climate regulations, “[…] whilst still having this kind of bold proposal that makes sure you are still for something, not just against it?”

McCoy said: “Well that’s the danger right, so they realised that they can’t get the sort of large bill put forth so what ends up happening is it’s death by 1,000 cuts, right”?

“They just go through the regulatory process, and they put a moratorium on federal leasing, they’ll do something on pipelines you know, they’ll look at offshore drilling, they’re looking at the royalty rates now for onshore drilling so there’s going to be each step of the way they’re going to try to cripple the oil and gas sector”.

It is not just carbon tax or the oil and gas sector the ExxonMobil heads appear to be worried about. McCoy, as well as former Washington lobbyist for ExxonMobil Dan Easley, both told the undercover reporters that they are also fighting President Joe Biden and his $2 trillion American jobs plan – his flagship initiative to tackle climate change.

According to Greenpeace and the information revealed in the interview, ExxonMobil has been working hard behind the scenes to eliminate the proposed funding.

McCoy said: “We’re playing defence because President Biden is talking about this big infrastructure package and he’s going to pay for it by increasing corporate taxes. So it’s a delicate balance we’re asking for help with taxes over here [lobbying for subsidies for a carbon capture project] and we’re saying, don’t increase our taxes over here. The international tax piece for ExxonMobil is close to a billion dollars”.

Easley said the Biden infrastructure plan contained clean energy measures that would “accelerate the transition that I think four years from now – it is going to be difficult to unwind them“.

The interview also reflected on ExxonMobil fighting well established scientific facts regarding climate change.

McCoy told the reporter that although he didn’t believe Exxon had buried its own science, the company had cast doubt on the scientific consensus.

“Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these ‘shadow groups’ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing illegal about that. You know, we were looking out for our investments, we were looking out for our shareholders”.

Greenpeace said in an article written by their Unearthed investigative arm that the reference to ‘shadow groups’ was likely to relate to a powerful network of think tanks and pressure groups through which ExxonMobil fought both the science and political action on climate change.

The relationship between ExxonMobil and Trump was also a topic of discussion. The interview with Eisley revealed his personal disbelief at the scale of influence the company had during the Trump administration.

“The wins are such that it would be difficult to, to categorise them all. I mean, tax has to be the biggest one right, the reduction of the corporate rate was, you know, it’s probably worth billions to Exxon, so yeah there were a lot of wins”, Easley said.

After the interview was aired on Channel 4 in the UK, McCoy immediately wrote a LinkedIn post in which he apologised for the comments and claimed that what he said was not “ExxonMobil’s position on important public policy issues”.

He also stated that he was embarrassed because he fell for “Greenpeace’s deception” and apologised to his colleagues at ExxonMobil. It is yet unclear if there will the oil major take any disciplinary action against McCoy.

It also must be said that the comments section on his post was not kind to his apology with one of the commenters stating: “This wording reads like PR lip service. I’m guessing you wouldn’t have made this apology if you hadn’t been caught, correct”?

The interview also requested immediate attention from ExxonMobil chief executive officer Darren Woods who issued a formal apology by the company on Wednesday.

“Comments made by the individuals in no way represent the company’s position on a variety of issues, including climate policy and our firm commitment that carbon pricing is important to addressing climate change. The individuals interviewed were never involved in developing the company’s policy positions on the issues discussed.

“We condemn the statements and are deeply apologetic for them, including comments regarding interactions with elected officials. They are entirely inconsistent with the way we expect our people to conduct themselves. We were shocked by these interviews and stand by our commitments to working on finding solutions to climate change”, Woods said.

This comes at a very bad time for ExxonMobil as the company is still reeling from the loss of three board seats to activist shareholder Engine No. 1.

Also, ExxonMobil director Ursula Burns said recently at a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas virtual event this month that the company’s response to environmental criticisms “has not been well done“.