ExxonMobil Corp. has a problem. Besides being the walking soon-be-extinct-if-they-don’t-render-all-of-the-rest-of-us-extinct dinosaur in the room, they are now being subpoenaed by the Attorney General of U.S. Virgin Islands for 40 years worth of documents pertaining to climate change.
In his demand for records, Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker said Exxon may have violated the territory's anti-racketeering law, defrauding the government and consumers with the company's statements on climate change. It is the first time a prosecutor has cited racketeering law to probe Exxon over its longtime denial of climate change and its products' role in it, according to legal authorities.
Exxon alleged that the subpoena is invalid because it seeks records beyond the five-year statute of limitations, and that it violates the company's constitutional rights and "constitutes an abuse of process, in violation of common law." Exxon, based in Irving, Texas, filed the complaint in Tarrant County District Court in Texas. It listed Walker as a defendant, along with the Washington, D.C. lawyer and law firm representing the territory in the probe.
As Inside Climate News points out, AG Claude Walker was just one of 17 United States Attorney Generals to announce a couple of weeks ago that they were all going to be seriously investigating the alleged climate fraud perpetuated by Exxon. Before we go further, just remember this—Exxon prepared for climate change at the same time as they were actively trying to discredit climate scientists. That is dark magic. The use of anti-racketeering law is doubly frightening to ExxonMobil because besides giving attorney generals considerably more latitude in their investigative powers, it is a general tone-setter—the nation’s attorney generals are investigating a huge corporation the way you would organized crime, like the mob.
This news comes on the heels of reports on how hard oil drillers are fighting the Obama administration’s soon to be announced regulations on offshore drilling.
The Obama administration will issue the sweeping new regulations Thursday as part of an effort to reduce the number of well blowouts after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig in 2010. The government has pegged the rules’ costs at less than $1 billion.
The changes would arrive amid the worst oil slump in a generation. ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp. have already abandoned some Gulf prospects because they wouldn’t be profitable at current prices. If the proposals are enacted, exploration outlays in the Gulf will tumble by 70 percent over the next two decades, wiping out as many as 190,000 jobs, according to consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
All of that oily gold for the taking if only those tree huggers would just shut up with their politically correct words like “safety” and “safety” and “safety.”