It’s been a little while since we’ve covered the #ExxonKnew investigations, so here’s something new: Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has issued civil investigative demands for Exxon’s communications with some think tanks and activists organizations, including Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity. She’s asking for 40 years worth of internal communications, according a copy of the subpoena-like request obtained by the denier’s favorite “reporter”, Michael Bastasch at the Daily Caller, whose headline boasts of this “EXCLUSIVE” get. (The Hill had the story published within ten minutes of this supposed “exclusive.” And less than an hour after the Daily Caller story's publication, Politico PRO had the story, and even included links to the documents. Unlike Bastasch though, other coverage informs readers that ExxonMobil has filed an injunction against Healey’s investigation, which is the real story.)
As per usual, even with this “exclusive,” Bastasch gets key facts wrong. He says, “there’s a huge problem with Healey’s subpoena that shows just how broad this investigation has become” and claims that Americans for Prosperity and Beacon Hill Institute have never gotten money from ExxonMobil.
But a quick search shows that Americans for Prosperity's predecessor Citizens for A Sound Economy got hundreds of thousands from ExxonMobil. The history is admittedly a little complicated for a churnalist like Bastasch to follow. But, fortunately, Sourcewatch lays it out: in 2004, ExxonMobil-funded Citizens for a Sound Economy split, part of it merging with Empower America to form the Dick Armey-led and more GOP-controlled FreedomWorks, while the David Koch branch formed Americans for Prosperity. Hmm, guess it’s not so complicated after all, if the group in question simply went by another name when it was funded by ExxonMobil.
[Continued after the jump!]
And although Beacon Hill Institute itself hasn’t (yet?) been proven to have received ExxonMobil money, its President/Executive Director David G. Tuerck was a policy expert for Heritage Foundation and Heartland, and was at one point director of the Center for Research and Advertising at the ExxonMobil-funded American Enterprise Institute. Teurck/Beacon Hill have produced numerous anti-renewable papers to be used to oppose cap and trade and fight renewables. In 2012, the Portland Press Herald reported that Maine Gov. Paul LePage relied on a Beacon Hill report to justify his opposition to a renewable portfolio standard, apparently unaware of its fossil fuel funding. So Teurck has past ties to ExxonMobil money, and has since produced “research” used in coordinated efforts to undercut public support for renewable energy.
Were Bastasch a respectable reporter, he might have spent just a few minutes googling and then refrained from falsely suggesting that neither group has ties to ExxonMobil money. Instead he simply published the claim, likely fed to him by whomever sent him the subpoena, and fulfilled his role as a dutiful purveyor of the Exxon-defense narrative.
This is exxactly the sort of thing that should serve as a learning exxperience for Bastasch, proving he should not to get too exxicted about exxclusives from Exxon et al.’s exxpert defenders. It should teach him to exxamine their exxamples of how these AGs are supposedly acting exxtra-legally. He should be exxtremely embarrassed, since there’s no exxcuse for not fact-checking. Really, it’s sad that this even needed to be exxplained.
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