Exxon Mobil Under Investigation in New York Over Climate Statements - The New York Times

Interestingly there was an earlier opinion piece on Exxon by KelleLouaillier and BillMcKibben which speaks very clearly about the questioned Exxon actions

  see:  http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2015/10/opinion-how-big-oil-hijacked-climate.html

The New York attorney general has begun a sweeping investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how those risks might hurt the oil business.

According to people with knowledge of the investigation, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued a subpoena Wednesday evening to Exxon Mobil, demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents.

The focus includes the company’s activities dating to the late 1970s, including a period of at least a decade when Exxon Mobil funded groups that sought to undermine climate science. A major focus of the investigation is whether the company adequately warned investors about potential financial risks stemming from society’s need to limit fossil-fuel use.

Kenneth P. Cohen, vice president for public affairs at Exxon Mobil, said on Thursday that the company had received the subpoena and was still deciding how to respond.

“We unequivocally reject the allegations that Exxon Mobil has suppressed climate-change research,” Mr. Cohen said, adding that the company had funded mainstream climate science since the 1970s, had published dozens of scientific papers on the topic, and had disclosed climate risks to investors.

Photo

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman of New York, shown in May, issued a subpoena Wednesday demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents from the company. Credit Hans Pennink/Associated Press

The people with knowledge of the New York case also said on Thursday that, in a separate inquiry, Peabody Energy, the nation’s largest coal producer, had been under investigation by the attorney general for two years over whether it properly disclosed financial risks related to climate change. That investigation has not been previously reported, and has not resulted in any charges or other legal action against Peabody.

Vic Svec, a Peabody senior vice president, said in a statement, “Peabody continues to work with the New York attorney general’s office regarding our disclosures, which have evolved over the years.”

The Exxon Mobil investigation might expand further, to encompass other oil companies, according to the people with knowledge of the case, though no additional subpoenas have been issued to date.

The people spoke on the condition they not be identified, saying they were not authorized to speak publicly. The Martin Act, a New York state law, confers on the attorney general broad powers to investigate financial fraud.

Mr. Schneiderman’s decision to scrutinize the fossil-fuel companies may well open a sweeping new legal front in the battle over climate change. To date, lawsuits trying to hold fossil-fuel companies accountable for the damage they are causing to the climate have been failing in the courts, but most of those have been pursued by private plaintiffs.

Attorneys general for other states could join in Mr. Schneiderman’s efforts, bringing far greater investigative and legal resources to bear on the issue. Some experts see the potential for a legal assault on fossil-fuel companies similar to the lawsuits against the tobacco companies in recent decades, costing those companies tens of billions of dollars in penalties.

“This could open up years of litigation and settlements in the same way that tobacco litigation did, also spearheaded by attorneys general,” said Brandon L. Garrett, a professor at the University of Virginia law school. “In some ways, the theory is similar — that the public was misled about something dangerous to health. Whether the same smoking guns will emerge, we don’t know yet

Exxon Mobil Under Investigation in New York Over Climate Statements - The New York Times

Keystone pipeline company wants pause to the bid process - BBC News

 

The company behind the Keystone XL pipeline has asked the US government to put its review of the controversial project on hold.

TransCanada says the pause is necessary while it negotiates with Nebraska over the pipeline's route through the state.

The move came as a surprise as TransCanada executives have pushed hard to get approval.

Environmental groups oppose the 1,179-mile (1,897km) pipeline, saying it will increase greenhouse gas emissions.

President Barack Obama is expected to reject the project, which has also been undermined by falling oil prices.

On Monday the White House indicated that it would rule on the project before the end of the president's term in office in January 2017.

Political complications

But a delay to the government review might leave a decision in the hands of President Obama's successor in the White House.

In February 2015, the newly Republican-led Congress voted to begin construction immediately, but Mr Obama vetoed the bill, saying it undermined the necessary review process.

"Our expectation at this point is that the president will make a decision before the end of his administration on the Keystone pipeline, but when exactly that will be, I don't know at this point," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday.

In a statement on Monday TransCanada chief executive Russ Girling said: "We are asking (the US) State (Department) to pause its review of Keystone XL based on the fact that we have applied to the Nebraska Public Service Commission for approval of its preferred route in the state."

The Keystone XL pipeline is a proposed 1,179-mile (1,897km) pipe that would run from the oil sands in Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Nebraska, where it could join an existing pipeline. It could carry 830,000 barrels of oil each day.

The oil fields in Alberta are landlocked and the pipeline would give their output access to international markets.

Many of North America's oil refineries are based in the Gulf Coast, and industry groups on both sides of the border want to benefit.

But environmentalists say the pipeline would boost the emission of greenhouse gases and local community groups are concerned about accidents and pollution.

An added complication is the victory of Canada's Liberal Party in last month's election.

New Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been supportive of the pipeline, but it is thought he might not pursue the project as aggressively as his predecessor Stephen Harper, who said he wouldn't "take no for an answer" from President Obama.

Keystone pipeline company wants pause to the bid process - BBC News

OPINION: How Big Oil hijacked the climate-change debate with its lies - MarketWatch

 

Just as Big Tobacco did about smoking, ExxonMobil lied about what it knew about global warming

By

KelleLouaillier

BillMcKibben

Getty Images

ExxonMobil has known since the 1970s that burning fossil fuels contributed to climate change, but lied about what it knew and helped create a whole industry of global-warming denial.

BOSTON (Project Syndicate) — Over the last few years, a growing number of people have been taking a hard look at what is happening to our planet — historic droughts, rising sea levels, massive floods — and acknowledging, finally, that human activity is propelling rapid climate change. But guess what? Exxon (now ExxonMobil) XOM, +0.16%  had an inkling of this as early as 1978.

By the early 1980s, Exxon scientists had much more than an inkling. They not only understood the science behind climate change, but also recognized the company’s own outsize role in driving the phenomenon. Recognizing the potential effects as “catastrophic” for a significant portion of the population, they urged Exxon’s top executives to take action. Instead, the executives buried the truth.

Beyond suppressing its own findings, ExxonMobil (and its peers) funded and promoted junk science and attacked scientists who warned of the impending climate disaster.

There may be a silver lining to this infuriating story: the recent investigation that exposed Exxon’s deceit could end up catalyzing the action needed to address the looming climate crisis. After all, similar revelations about the tobacco industry — what the major cigarette companies knew and when they knew it — transformed the public-health landscape.

In 1996, a series of lawsuits forced tobacco companies to release millions of internal documents, which confirmed what public-health advocates and policy makers had long suspected: as early as the 1950s, the industry knew that nicotine was addictive and that cigarettes caused cancer.

But, to protect its own interests, Big Tobacco deliberately misled the public, doing everything possible to cast doubt on scientific findings that it knew to be accurate. Such tactics enabled the industry to delay, for more than 50 years, regulation that could have saved millions of lives annually.

After the revelations, however, it was clear that the tobacco industry was a malevolent force that did not belong in the policy-making process. With Big Tobacco out of the picture, and armed with evidence of the real effects of tobacco consumption, health advocates were finally able to compel their governments to act.

In 2003, world leaders agreed to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization. Today, the treaty covers 90% of the world’s populationand has contributed to a significant decline in sales for global tobacco corporations. Over time, it will save hundreds of millions of lives (and save governments’ health-care budgets huge sums).

Big Oil, it is now clear, has been following Big Tobacco’s playbook. In 1997, almost two decades after it began studying climate change, it quashed its research, claiming that climate science was “far from clear” and thus that it did not “support mandated cuts in energy use.”

Beyond suppressing its own findings, ExxonMobil (and its peers) funded and promoted junk science and attacked scientists who warned of the impending climate disaster. The fossil-fuel companies’ approach was so effective that the media are only now beginning to recognize the leading role the industry played in creating — almost out of whole cloth — the so-called “climate debate.”

But perhaps Big Oil’s biggest success was diminishing the political will to implement appropriate regulation. Even after the international community adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, the fossil-fuel industry managed to block meaningful progress — to the point that, if serious action is not taken soon, the entire process could unravel.

In Europe, Royal Dutch Shell’s  lobbying so diluted the European Union’s effortsthat there are now no binding targets for renewables or energy efficiency for individual countries. The company RDSA, +1.12% RDSB, +0.91% even sent a letter to the European Commission’s president claiming that “gas is good for Europe.” Shell and other oil companies are now promising to work as “advisers” to national governments on how to deal with climate change.

Just as the tobacco files drove the tobacco industry out of policy-making processes, the Exxon investigation should compel world leaders to eliminate the fossil-fuel industry from efforts to solve the climate crisis. After all, no policy can succeed if those who shape it are betting on its failure.

The turning point for tobacco-related public-health policy came when the industry’s depravity became indisputable. Now, that moment has come for the climate movement. We cannot simply hope that the fossil-fuel industry will change its ways.

As an alliance of human-rights groups, environmental activists, and corporate-accountability advocates already is demanding, we must kick the industry out of the policy-making process altogether.

Exxon’s scientists were right: the effects of climate change on many communities are catastrophic. With so many lives at stake — and such clear evidence of the threat — Big Oil, like Big Tobacco before it, should be treated for what it is: Big Trouble.

This article has been published with the permission of Project Syndicate — Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Lies.

Kelle Louaillier is president of Corporate Accountability International. Bill McKibben, a scholar in environmental sciences at Middlebury College and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a co­founder of 350.org.

Above is from:  How Big Oil hijacked the climate-change debate with its lies - MarketWatch

Illinois oil train derailment involved safer tank cars - Yahoo News

 

GALENA, Ill. (AP) — The rail cars that split open and burst into flames during a western Illinois oil train derailment this week had been retrofitted with protective shields to meet a higher safety standard than federal law requires, railroad officials said.

The fire continued to burn Friday, a day after 21 of the train's 105 cars derailed in a rural area south of the city of Galena. No injuries were reported, but the accident was the latest in a series of failures for the safer tank-car model that has led some people calling for even tougher requirements.

"It certainly begs that question, when ... those standards failed to prevent leakage and explosions that threaten human safety and environmental contamination," said Steve Barg, director of the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation, which owns a nature preserve several hundred yards from the derailment site.

BNSF Railway said in a news release that the train's tank cars were a newer model known as the 1232, which was designed during safety upgrades voluntarily adopted by the industry four years ago in hopes of keeping cars from rupturing during derailments. But 1232 standard cars involved in three other accidents have split open in the past year.

Those other accidents included one last month in West Virginia in which a train carrying 3 million gallons of North Dakota crude derailed, shooting fireballs into the sky, leaking oil into a waterway and burning down a house. The home's owner was treated for smoke inhalation, but no one else was injured.

In Thursday's accident in Illinois, 21 cars derailed in an area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi. The company said a resulting fire spread to five rail cars, and emergency personnel were still working to contain the blaze Friday.

View gallery

Smoke and flames erupt from the scene of a train derailment Thursday, March 5, 2015, near Galena, Il …

Firefighters could only access the derailment site by a bike path, said Galena Assistant Fire Chief Bob Conley. They had to pull back initially for safety reasons, but by midday Friday officials described the area as "stable."

The Federal Railroad Administration said its investigators expected to have access to the site around noon.

The train had 103 cars loaded with crude oil from the Northern Plains' Bakken region, along with two buffer cars loaded with sand, according to company spokesman Andy Williams. The cause of the derailment hasn't been determined.

The accident occurred 3 miles south of Galena in a wooded and hilly area that is a major tourist attraction and the home of former President Ulysses S. Grant. It's part of the Driftless Area, a multi-state region prized in the largely flat Midwest for its high bluffs, karst limestone and steep ravines that escaped the last continental glacier.

It is also just alongside part of the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife and Fish Refuge. So far, there's no indication of any oil contamination there, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Georgia Parhan.

View gallery

Smoke and flames erupt from the scene of a train derailment Thursday, March 5, 2015, near Galena, Il …

As of June of last year, BNSF was hauling 32 Bakken oil trains per week through the surrounding Jo Daviess County, according to information disclosed to Illinois emergency officials.

Recent derailments have increased public concern about the safety of shipping crude by train. According to the Association of American Railroads, oil shipments by rail jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 500,000 in 2014, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana, where pipeline limitations force 70 percent of the crude to move by rail.

Since 2006, the U.S. and Canada have now seen at least 22 oil-train accidents involving a fire, derailment or significant amount of fuel spilled, according to an Associated Press examination of federal accident records.

The wrecks have intensified pressure on the administration of President Barack Obama to approve tougher standards for railroads and tank cars, despite industry complaints that it could cost billions and slow freight deliveries.

Oil industry officials had been opposed to further upgrading the 1232 cars because of costs. But late last year they changed their position and joined with the railway industry to support some upgrades, although they asked for time to make the improvements

Illinois oil train derailment involved safer tank cars - Yahoo News

Why low oil prices might be temporary

While no one can predict the short-term direction of oil with any accuracy, there are several reasons to believe that the recent plunge in crude prices may not last much longer.

Why low oil prices might be temporary

Nation
Oil Price/barrel required to break even/balance budget

US producers
$70-$77

Qatar
$58

Kuwait
$59

UAE
$90

Saudi Arabia
$92

Angola
$94

Russia
$101

Iraq
$116

Venezuela
$117

Algeria
$119

Ecuador
$122

Nigeria
$124

Iran
$136

Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg, Marketwatch.

large proportion of today's oil production is currently occurring in nations who depend on far higher prices to balance their budgets. Similarly, while the average production cost in North Dakota's Bakken shale is just $38 per barrel, nationwide U.S. shale production costs are higher, with an average cost of $70 to $77 per barrel, according to Reuters. 

This means that at current oil prices, production growth in the US may soon grind to a halt. For example, according to analyst firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. at $70 per barrel, U.S. oil production growth will halt, and below it, production will begin to shrink.

Simply put, budgetary necessities faced by many petro-states as well as the economic reality that one third of U.S. shale production is uneconomical below $80 per barrel, mean things will likely have to change sooner rather than later. Over the coming months, it's probable that someone, OPEC, Russia, or U.S. producers, will be forced to cut production, which could cause oil prices to stabilize and rise to more favorable levels.

Read more by clicking on the following:   http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/08/energy-transfer-partners-etp-will-oil-price-collap.aspx

How far have oil prices fallen?

 

GARTMAN: We're Witnessing The End Of The Oil Era - Yahoo Finance

 

Earlier on Monday, it had been reported that Gartman saw crude oil going to $10 a barrel, but he backed a bit off that claim in his appearance on Monday, saying that maybe next time he ought to be a bit more circumspect when he talks to CNBC's producers.

But the central spirit of Gartman's not quite $10 call was still intact, with Gartman saying simply that the era of oil is over. At one point, Gartman went so far as to compare crude oil to whale oil, which became obsolete following the advent of crude in the early 20th century. 

In discussing the "end of oil," Gartman referenced news from Lockheed Martin earlier this month that the aerospace giant has made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion. And while Business Insider's Jessica Orwig reported that some in the scientific community are skeptical of this breakthrough, Gartman sees the potential in this breakthrough as being something of a death knell for oil.

Gartman also referenced other factors weighing on oil prices, namely a supply glut and a market that is contango.

A market is said to be in contango when the futures contract for a commodity is more than what the expected price will be in the future.

Read the entire story by clicking on the following:  GARTMAN: We're Witnessing The End Of The Oil Era - Yahoo Finance

Keystone Be Darned: Canada Finds Oil Route Around Obama

 

…By Rebecca Penty, Hugo Miller, Andrew Mayeda and Edward Greenspon

…Thus was born Energy East, an improbable pipeline that its backers say has a highly probability of being built. It will cost C$12 billion ($10.7 billion) and could be up and running by 2018. Its 4,600-kilometer (2,858-mile) path, taking advantage of a vast length of existing and underused natural gas pipeline, would wend through six provinces and four time zones. It would be Keystone on steroids, more than twice as long and carrying a third more crude.

Supertanker Access

Its end point, a refinery in the blue-collar city of Saint John, New Brunswick, operated by a reclusive Canadian billionaire family, would give Canada’s oil-sands crude supertanker access to the same Louisiana and Texas refineries Keystone was meant to supply.

As well, Vladimir Putin’s provocations in Ukraine are spurring interest in that oil from Europe and, strange as it seems, Saint John provides among the fastest shipping times to India of any oil port in North America. Indian companies, having already sampled this crude, are interested in more. That means oil-sands production for the first time would trade in more than dribs and drabs on the international markets. With the U.S. virtually its only buyer, the captive Canadians are subject to price discounts of as much as $43 a barrel that cost Canada $20 billion a year.

Read more by clicking on the following:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-08/keystone-be-darned-canada-finds-oil-route-around-obama.html

What the Frack is in That Water? - ProPublica

No one knows the exact makeup of the frack mixture, drilling muds and other stuff used at well sites (which change from well to well), but this list breaks down the main ingredients revealed so far

Click on the following to learn more:  What the Frack is in That Water? - ProPublica

U.S. Issues New Regulations on Offshore Drilling - NYTimes.com

 

The Interior Department issued new safety and spill-response regulations for offshore oil and gas drilling on Thursday, but gave no hint of when the moratorium on deepwater operations will be lifted.

— governing blowout preventers, safety certification, well design, emergency response and worker training — provide offshore drillers with clarity on the terms under which drilling will resume when the current freeze ends….rules take effect immediately under emergency rule-making powers

Click on the following for more details:  U.S. Issues New Regulations on Offshore Drilling - NYTimes.com

BP approaching SWFs over strategic stake: source | Reuters

 talks with a number of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) including Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Qatar and Singapore, the source told Reuters under condition of anonymity.

Click on the following for more details:  BP approaching SWFs over strategic stake: source | Reuters

First the Spill, Then the Lawsuits - NYTimes.com

 

Lawyers across the nation have filed nearly 200 lawsuits so far related to the April 20 oil disaster, including death and injury claims for those aboard the rig, claims of damage and economic loss for people whose livelihoods are threatened by the slick, and shareholder suits over BP’s plunging stock. Cases have even been filed on behalf of the oil-coated fish and birds. Lawyers also plan to file a civil racketeering action alleging a corporate conspiracy with the Bush administration.

Click on the following for more details:  First the Spill, Then the Lawsuits - NYTimes.com

Editorial - The Halliburton [Cheney] Loophole - NYTimes.com

 

It stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. Invented by Halliburton in the 1940s, it involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals, some of them toxic, into underground rock formations to blast them open and release natural gas.

Congress last week approved a bill that asks the E.P.A. to conduct a new study on the risks of hydraulic fracturing.

even more important bill is waiting in the wings. Cumbersomely named the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, it would close the loophole and restore the E.P.A.’s rightful authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing. It would also require the oil and gas industry to disclose the chemicals they use.

Click on the following to read the opinion in its entirety:  Editorial - The Halliburton Loophole - NYTimes.com

77-Cent Increase Per Gallon of Gas? | FactCheck.org

Q: Will the House cap-and-trade bill raise the cost of a gallon of gasoline by 77 cents?

A: That extreme estimate comes from the oil and gas industry’s lobby. Nonpartisan government experts project a lower increase, most likely between 12 and 67 cents per gallon in 2020.

Click on the following to read the full answer: 77-Cent Increase Per Gallon of Gas? | FactCheck.org