It’s been over a year since bigger and bigger leaks began to appear concerning what executives at ExxonMobil knew—and when they knew it—about climate change and its causes. U.S. state attorneys general began inquiring into whether or not ExxonMobil practiced fraud upon the American people in order to continue to build profits for the last 40 years. The attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands subpoenaed ExxonMobil for 40 years of records to that end. ExxonMobil has been suing to block any release of documents since that time. Suddenly, 17 state attorneys general, along with eight environmental activist organizations around the United States, received some crazy letters warning them about impeding ExxonMobil’s First Amendment rights. Crazier yet is that those letters came from the Republicans on the House Science Committee. Yes, the words “Republicans” and “Science Committee” may seem like a bad comedy sketch idea, but the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology has 13 Republicans on it, led by science-denier and George Will’s more evil-twin brother Lamar Smith (R-TX).
The House science committee letters were signed by the following members: Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), Vice Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK), Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI), Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA), Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX), Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), and Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-LA). Together, these members of Congress have received $3,411,173 in career contributions from the oil and gas, coal mining, and electric utilities industries, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Moreover, all 13 committee members have received money directly from Exxon, totally $126,020. Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and Vice Chairman Frank Lucas have each received over $760,000 from the fossil fuel industry and at least $15,000 from Exxon.
The fact of the matter is that this is just the money we can all see. You can bet your bottom dollar that there’s a lot more money funneled in through PACs and Orwellian-named groups buying election advertisements on their behalf.