Posted on 07/12/2016 4:26:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
Liberal attorneys general from 17 states have put a big red bulls-eye on the chest of big oil. Their bizarre claim is that, for years, energy companies fraudulently covered up their knowledge that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels cause catastrophic climate change. The most recent chapter of this witch hunt is a remarkable subpoena filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, which would require Exxon Mobil Corp. to turn over 40 years of internal company documents. It also demands that Exxon Mobil produce all its internal communication with conservative-leaning think tanks.
This is nothing more than an old-fashioned, political mob shakedown of a deep-pocketed industry for money. The attorneys general are hoping for a repeat of the multibillion-dollar tobacco company settlement in the 1990s. The big and obvious difference here is that tobacco companies sell a product that is dangerous to one's health. The oil and gas companies sell energy that makes all modern industrial life possible.
Worse, they want to use the steel-heeled boot of government to get energy companies to stop giving money to free-market institutions that the left doesn't agree with. But they are permitted to donate to the Sierra Club, the Wildlife Federation and the Center for American Progress.
The goal is to silence any opposition to the climate-change industrial complex. The way to create a scientific consensus on an issue is to muzzle anyone who dares disagree with the scientific consensus. If these science policemen had been around several hundred years ago, we'd all be forced to believe that the earth is flat.
To enforce the global warming consensus, the attorneys general want more than money: They want to figuratively hang the oil and gas company CEOs in effigy in the public square. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman hinted that he'd like to see criminal prosecution and jail time for the energy company executives, saying, "Financial damages alone may be insufficient. ... The First Amendment does not give you the right to commit fraud."
The end game here could hardly be more sinister. The attorneys general are following the example set by the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to bleed and "bankrupt" oil and gas producers in America as they are doing now to the domestic coal industry.
All the while, there has been no factual basis for these allegations, just conjecture and speculation. First, there is no evidence that the companies produced global warming research; second, there's no evidence they covered it up; third, there is no evidence that whatever findings this research (if it happened) confirmed or denied global warming; and fourth, there is no consensus among leading scientists about whether global warming is happening, why it is happening, or what its effect might be (positive or negative) on the planet.
Moreover, unlike the tobacco company litigation, where smokers got cancer and heart disease, who is the victim here of the purported fraud by the energy companies?
While these attorneys general are using their positions of power to intimidate big oil, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and others have been busy creating millions of energy-related jobs, helping the United States become the largest energy producer in the world, driving down the cost of energy, and adding to U.S. growth. Without the energy companies and the shale oil and gas boom of the last decade, the U.S. would not have escaped the Great Recession of 2008-2009. But in Washington, no good deed goes unpunished.
Now for the ultimate irony of these witch hunts. The oil and gas companies are reducing their greenhouse gas emissions already. Partly because of fracking and the new boom in natural gas, carbon emissions have rapidly declined over the past decade. So where is the fraud?
What's more, because natural gas burns clean, and because of its availability, affordability and abundance, it is more and more the fuel that powers the engine that drives our economy. Exxon Mobil and all the other energy producers should be honored and given medals for environmental cleanup, not demonized.
The appointment of hundreds of leftist activist judges to the federal bench by Barack Obama, aided and abetted by Republicans in the Senate, should facilitate this shakedown. After all the highly politicized courts have stood by and allowed the Justice Department to shake down companies and individuals throughout this administration.
There is no effect. Smoking had cause and effect.
All of the predictions about climate change have been wrong.
Every single poll I take asks about the enviornment.
Doesn’t ask if GW is real. Asks what i can do to help, govt, companies, etc. Drives me insane.
Goebbels would be proud
Just tell’em “No”.
Dream world: Pick a deep rat state with an AG participating in this fraud and let the oil and gas industry cut off sales to that state. Continue until the state Rats change their minds or the state collapses.
This is on par with liberals wanting criminal charges for climate change “deniers.”
you have it right on the money
just opt out
THAT we should physically block from happening.
Stay in front of whomever’s house the “suspect” is in, and take a stand.
Anything short is surrendering.
Exxon should shut down for three days, and loudly proclaim the reason for the shutdown. Or maybe longer. The chaos would have the AGs hanging in effigy from the lamppost in the town squares of America.
Perhaps Exxon and the others should simply boycott all sales in Mass. for a while.
The irony is that these companies will provide the rope for their executioners. They have various PACs and Industry organizations that still contribute to leftist and Democrat campaigns and candidates. They should smell the coffee and cease all such contributions and inform all of their shareholders that the shareholders should, in light of self-interest, do the same.
exxon has good attorneys
AG’s like the scumbags in NY - who has taken dirty money from Malaysian gambling interests - and Mass, just like the Baltimore scumbag prosecuting cops - will not be able to prove their case... and XOM will tie their balls (if they have any) in a legal knot lasting at least a decade.. and XOM will prevail...
maybe XOM should start reviewing their personel requirements in the appropraite states, contracts with cariers delivering thier products and review their contractual requirements with state agencies, utilities and gasoline delivery priorities... maybe a few refinery shutdowns too during the review process...
Libtards dont know and cant follow the law... they make rules up via agencies (EPA) as they destroy the economy...
hey got the hammer..... use it
Hey, it worked w/tobacco, didn’t it?
With that in mind, the likely goal is to punish them via a massive multi billion dollar slush fund such as was set up for tobacco cancer settlements.
They are drooling.
There is an easier way. First off, publish every Democrats donor list., whether it’s legal to do so or not. Any pol who is affiliated with the energy industry get mercilessly pilloried. Then you start boycotting every company who donates.
The minute the pol feels the heat and starts losing donors, he will shut up.
All attacks against US gas and oil and coal have one purpose. To increase market share of Saudi oil. Obama does this in service of his Saudi masters.
Smoking had cause and effect.
...
There are tobacco addicts who would disagree with that.
Exxon-Mobil was responsible for the end of the Age of Glaciers, 10,000 years ago (give or take)!
I have a dear friend that started smoking in his teens (to be cool). As of today, he continues to smoke and is 89 years old. I challenge your “cause and effect”.
My current position? I’ll likely take up smoking again when I reach 90YO, because smoking, reportedly, takes 10 years off your life. I guess I’ll live to be 100 BECAUSE I smoked?
This sounds like a criminal conspiracy to to shake down the energy companies that should be prosecuted under the RICO statutes.
F**k off Fascists!
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