Last week, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey told the Exxon-sponsored GOP members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that they don’t have the authority to “interfere” with her investigations into ExxonMobil’s potential climate cover-up.
Meanwhile, Yale Law School Dean Robert Post penned a very strong op-ed for the Washington Post, calling out the company for “abusing the First Amendment.” He points out how it’s “hard to exaggerate the brazen audacity” of the free speech excuse, as it is an attempt to short-circuit the investigation process by denying the attorneys general the ability to gather the “information necessary to determine whether ExxonMobil has committed fraud.” The invocation of the First Amendment in a case like this is “grossly irresponsible” says Post’s Post post, but is unfortunately part of “an increasing tendency to use the First Amendment to unravel ordinary business regulations.”
A small but vital part of Post’s op-ed brings up another interesting point, that “one would think conservative intellectuals would be the first to recognize the necessity of prohibiting fraud” since “no sane market could exist without” these sorts of regulations.
But, as we all know, sanity has all but abandoned the political realm, and it’s not conservatives or any of the pro-free-market think tanks that are leading this free-market-protection charge. Which is why the Democratic Party added to their official platform a call for the Justice Department to “investigate allegations of corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies.”
Since the AGs’ and FBI investigations are getting the bulk of the attention these days, it’s perhaps too easy to forget that this whole thing was started by investigative reporters without the benefit of government backing. And they’re still keeping a close eye on ExxonMobil. For example, Cindy Baxter at the Climate investigations Center points out that ExxonMobil’s annual report on its corporate giving “is still MIA,” despite its usual publication around the Annual General Meeting at the end of May.
One thing that’s finally no long MIA is a defense of the investigations on the WSJ’s opinion pages, as they ran a letter from Virgin Islands AG Claude Walker that quickly and clearly defines his investigation as one about fraud (not free speech) and corrects an editorial that falsely claimed he was demanding donor names from CEI (he’s not).
This was lovely to see, though it would have been better had they not run a letter from Alabama AG Luther Strange, who of course played the free speech card, the day before.
GOP defending the fossil fuel industry? Sadly, nothing strange there but his name.
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