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      Democrat senators call for a freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia amid oil production cuts – video

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      Two Democrat senators have called for a freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia unless it reverses a Riyadh-led Opec+ decision to cut oil production. They said the decision to reduce production would help Russia’s war in Ukraine. 
      ‘The only apparent purpose of this cut in oil supplies is to help the Russians and harm Americans. It was unprovoked and unforced, as an error,’ the Connecticut senator, Richard Blumenthal, said. His statement was echoed by his Democrat colleague from California, Ro Khanna, who said: ‘When Americans are facing a crisis because of Putin, when we’re paying more at the pump, our ally, someone who we have helped for decades, should be trying to help the American people.’
      The Biden administration said it was reviewing its ties with the Gulf kingdom. 
      Speaking to CNN, however, a Saudi minister, Adel al-Jubeir, said: ‘Saudi Arabia does not politicise oil. We don’t see oil as a weapon. We see oil as our commodity. Our objective is to bring stability to the oil market.’ Riyadh is not partnering with Russia, he added

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      Congress is about to pass a historic climate bill. So why are oil companies pleased? | Kate Aronoff

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      Congress is about to pass a historic climate bill. So why are oil companies pleased?Kate AronoffThe bill is a devil’s bargain between the Democrats, the fossil fuel industry, and recalcitrant senator Joe Manchin. Yet it’s better than nothing “We’re pleased,” ExxonMobil’s CEO, Darren Woods, said on an earnings call last month, speaking about the Inflation Reduction Act. He called the bill, now making its way through the US Congress, “clear and consistent”. After it passed the Senate Sunday evening, Shell USA said it was “a step toward increased energy security and #netzero”. The world is currently on track to produce double the amount of coal, oil and gas in 2030 than is consistent with capping warming at 1.5C. To state the obvious: climate policy should strike fear into the hearts of fossil fuel executives, not delight them. So what have some of the world’s worst polluters found to like about a historic piece of climate legislation?Guilt by association only goes so far: that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed is undoubtedly good news. It will do a lot of good things. Democrats face the distinct possibility of being locked out of power for at least a decade after midterm elections this November, when they’re expected to lose the House of Representatives. Republicans won’t be keen to recognize that another party’s candidate could win the presidency, let alone reduce emissions. That something being called climate policy passed at all is thanks to the tireless work the climate movement has done to put it on the agenda, and the diligent staffers who spent late nights translating that momentum into legislation.But it also reflects just how much power the fossil fuel industry has amassed. The IRA is the product of a devil’s bargain struck between (among others) Democrats and Joe Manchin, speaking on behalf of his corporate donors. In exchange for his agreeing to vote for some $370bn worth of genuinely exciting climate spending, the West Virginia senator has demanded sweeping permitting reform and an all-of-government greenlight for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Many of the worst provisions are slated to be passed in future legislation this September. The IRA itself contains a remarkable poison pill, requiring that 60m acres of public waters be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the federal government could approve any new offshore wind development for a decade.Then again, maybe the oil and gas CEOs have finally come around, and such sweeteners are a distraction from the real story. After decades of lobbying against climate policy perhaps they’ve seen the inexorable march of history towards decarbonization and decided to hitch their wagons to it. Unfortunately, we’ve seen this show before. Over a decade ago the likes of BP and ConocoPhillips joined the US Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of green groups and corporations that set about trying to pass climate legislation at the start of the Obama presidency. The House of Representatives went on to pass the hulking carbon pricing bill it supported, only to see it die in the Senate.For corporate members of USCAP the situation was a win-win. With one hand they helped craft legislation so friendly to their interests that it would leave their core business model – pouring carbon into the atmosphere – mostly untouched. With the other hand they tried to make sure nothing passed at all. As the political scientist Jake Grumbach has shown, several corporate members of the coalition were simultaneously paying generous membership fees to the American Petroleum Institute, the Chamber of Commerce and other trade associations working actively to kill it. The same was true this time around; the critical difference this time is that their bill passed.Understanding what’s just happened demands a longer view. For decades, oil and gas executives have worked to create a political climate wholly allergic to comprehensive climate action. Part of that has been lobbying against climate legislation, of course, working to undermine bodies like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and spread disinformation. But for nearly a century the same corporations have conducted an all-out attack on the ability of the US government to get big, good things done.Climate change is ultimately a planning problem: there is no entity other than the state that can electrify the country, expand the grid, build prodigious amounts of mass transit and wind down coal, oil and gas production in time to keep warming short of catastrophic levels. For all its many shortcomings, the FDR-era New Deal sought to construct a state capable of tackling such complicated problems. The right – supercharged by fossil fuel funding – set out to destroy it, polluting our politics with the idea that efficient markets are the only reasonable answer to what ails society. Predictably, they railed against the Green New Deal, too, which rejected that logic. That’s not the result of some cadre of conniving CEOs waking up every morning and deciding to destroy the planet. They just happen to sell the lifeblood of capitalism and aren’t eager to be booted from that business.That the IRA’s most promising elements are a series of modest incentives to get corporations to do the right thing on climate – that demanding they actually do so feels so far out of reach – is the result of this long-running and largely successful ideological quest. This bill is woefully inadequate, featuring a cruel, casual disregard for those at home and abroad who will live with the consequences of boosting fossil fuel production as a bargaining chip for boosting clean energy. And it’s almost certainly better than nothing.
      Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at the New Republic and the author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet – And How We Fight Back
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      Workers are being punished for inflation. The real culprit is corporate greed | Robert Reich

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      Workers are being punished for inflation. The real culprit is corporate greedRobert ReichBig corporations are using inflation as cover to raise prices. Yet the US Federal Reserve is raising interest rates – further hurting Americans The US Federal Reserve is aiming its powerful firehose at the living room but it’s the forest that’s ablaze. As a result, people may drown even as their house catches fire.This about sums up the sorry state of inflation-fighting in America.On Wednesday, the Fed – America’s central bank – raised interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, and signaled more rate increases to come, perhaps as soon as September.This followed a quarter-point increase in March, another half a point in May, and three-quarters of a point in June.On Thursday, the commerce department announced that the US economy had shrunk for the second quarter in a row.While not technically a recession (economists in and out of the White House have spent much of the last several days deconstructing the word “recession”), there’s no question but that the US economy is slowing.This, to put it mildly, makes no sense.Inflation has broken out all over the world – the consequence of pent-up demand from more than two years of pandemic and of limited supplies of everything from computer chips to wheat, due to difficulties getting the world economy up and running.Add in Putin’s war in Ukraine driving up world energy and food prices, and China’s lockdowns against Covid, and you get a perfect conflagration.That’s not all. Big corporations are busily raising their prices because consumers have so little choice. Corporations are using inflation as cover.Prices at the gas pump have drifted down a bit in the last month but are still eye-popping. (Here in California, I’m paying over $6 a gallon.)At the same time, big oil has hit a gusher. Exxon just reported second-quarter profits of $17.9bn, more than three times what it earned a year ago. Chevron’s profit more than tripled to $11.6bn.The two giant American oil companies aren’t pouring their profits back into energy, green or otherwise. They’re buying back their shares of stock to reward investors and executives.Or consider giant corporations selling consumer staples, such as Proctor & Gamble (maker of everything from Gillette razors to Tide detergent).On Friday, P&G reported another quarter of rising profits despite the increasing costs of raw materials and transportation. How did it manage this feat? By raising its prices even more.Meanwhile, half of the recent rise in grocery prices is from beef, pork and poultry. Just four large conglomerates control these markets, and they’ve been coordinating their price increases to score large profits – here again, using “inflation” as an excuse.If markets were competitive, companies would keep their prices down to prevent competitors from grabbing away customers. But they’re raising prices even as they rake in record profits.The Fed’s firehose is hitting none of this.Meanwhile, we’re told not to worry because the labor market is doing just fine.Rubbish.There are two aspects to the labor market – jobs and wages. The number of jobs has been increasing nicely. Let’s hope this continues. But hourly wages have plummeted, when adjusted for inflation.If the Fed keeps raising interest rates – even if the national economy avoids an official “recession” – most workers will fall even further behind.The living standards of nearly everyone who borrows money are already dropping. Because of the Fed’s rate hikes, the average rate on credit card debt has reached 17.25% (up from 16.34% in March, before the Fed began raising interest rates). Rates on student loans, car loans and mortgages are also rising.The government should use a firehose better aimed at the conflagration, which won’t so badly burden the bottom 80%.For starters, impose a temporary windfall profits tax on big oil, on giant sellers of consumer staples and on big ag. This would reduce their incentive to engage in price gouging.Bolder antitrust enforcement – even the threat to block mergers and break up giant companies – could also reduce their ardor to raise prices.If Congress refuses to allow the government to use its bargaining power to reduce the prices of pharmaceuticals, big pharma is a good candidate for temporary price controls. (FDR controlled prices via executive order.)Finally, higher taxes on the wealthy – such as Democrats seem finally ready to enact – will help dampen total demand, thereby dousing some of the inflation fire.The Fed’s single tool for fire-fighting – interest-rate increases – is aimed in the wrong direction. It’s hitting working people rather than corporations responsible for most price increases (over and above the rising costs of global supplies).We need to fight rising prices, not working people.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      Big Oil V the World review – how can these climate crisis deniers sleep at night?

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      Big Oil V the World review – how can these climate crisis deniers sleep at night?This shocking documentary series reveals the lies oil lobbyists told to undercut democracy, prevent action against global heating – and bring our planet to the brink Al Gore described it as “in many ways the most serious crime of the post-world war two era, whose consequences are almost unimaginable”. Can you guess which one the former vice-president meant? Genocide in the former Yugoslavia? Genocide in Rwanda? The attack on the twin towers? The oxymoronic “war on terror” that produced – rather than eliminated – terrorism? The nuclear arms race? The invasion of Ukraine? The crimes of Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot? Or other ones I haven’t the space to cite?Gore is in fact referring to a very specific moment that occurred on 25 July 1997. That day, the US Senate voted by 95-0 for the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, ruling that the US should not sign a climate treaty that would become known as the Kyoto protocol – despite the Clinton administration’s desire for the US to be a world leader in the fight to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It meant that Clinton would only be allowed to take action when developing countries – particularly India and China – were bound by the same strictures.‘What we now know … they lied’: how big oil companies betrayed us allRead moreThe worry, touted by purported experts (many of whom were briefed and funded by US oil companies), was that Kyoto would be a disaster for the US. Imposing strict emission controls on the US – while industrialising nations such as India and China were not similarly constrained – would cost the US upwards of 5,000 jobs, put more than 50 cents on a tank of gas, whack up electricity bills 25% to 50% and put the struggling US economy at a competitive disadvantage in international markets. Or so it was claimed.Jane McMullen’s excellent and shocking first instalment of a three-part series, Big Oil V The World (BBC Two) reveals another reason for senators Robert Byrd and Chuck Hagel’s resolution. For many years, the big oil lobby had poured scorn on the growing scientific orthodoxy that humanity is hurtling towards a climate catastrophe and that the leading reason is the rise in emissions of greenhouse gases.What I didn’t know, and this documentary helpfully explains, is that the US’s largest oil company, Exxon, had labs filled with researchers who had produced detailed reports showing the reality of the climate crisis. That research, though, was suppressed.The bitter irony, clinched by one of the company’s former climate scientists, Ed Garvey, was that Exxon could have been part of the solution rather than the problem. Garvey worked on Exxon’s carbon dioxide research programme from 1978 to 1983, when it was closed because falling gas prices made it seem an expendable luxury.Garvey also recalls that there were scientists at Exxon developing alternatives to fossil fuels such as solar power and lithium batteries. But their work was shelved. The future of the planet, Garvey suggests, was deemed less important than Exxon’s short-term profit.Although the Clinton administration in which Gore served had from the outset committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels by 2000, and leaders of industrial nations such as the British prime minister, John Major, called for even deeper cuts, the Senate resolution effectively destroyed the president and his vice-president’s hopes of the US leading the world. Instead, the US, through its inaction, helped hasten the climate catastrophe we now live in.To clinch this rhetorical point, the programme repeatedly cuts from talking heads to scenes more hellish than those imagined by Dante or Milton. Floods in China, a fiery hellscape in California, storms lashing Louisiana and, in one shot, battering an Exxon gas station.After seeing such images, I wonder how Hagel, who sponsored that 1997 Senate resolution and went on to become defence secretary, sleeps at night. He was among the climate crisis deniers this documentary catches up with to hear them repent. Off-screen, the excellent interviewer asks Hagel if he feels he was misled, given that Exxon, whose execs lobbied him before the Senate vote, was making a concerted effort throughout the 1990s to cast doubt on the reality of the climate emergency and the role of human activity in increasing global temperatures – even though their own scientists were telling them that the science was sound.“We now know about some of these large oil companies … they lied,” says Hagel. “Yes I was misled. Others were misled. When they had evidence in their own institutions that countered what they were saying publicly – they lied.” If the truth had been told to Hagel and other climate crisis-denying senators, would the situation be different? “Oh absolutely,” says Hagel. “I think it would have changed the average citizen’s appreciation of climate change and mine. It would have put the United States and the world on a different track. It has cost this country and it’s cost the world.”Last August, the UN secretary general António Guterres said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group’s report confirming the link between human activity and rising greenhouse emissions is “a code red for humanity”. That Senate resolution, McMullen’s film argues, contributed to our climate emergency.No one in this programme explores the hideous political ramifications of this terrible state of affairs, namely that the virus of capitalism (in the form of big oil) undercut democracy through a sustained campaign of disinformation. How easy it proved for corporations to sucker politicians such as Hagel to subvert not just the will of the people but the wellbeing of the planet. If McMullen’s film has a moral, it’s that democracy must be healthy enough to resist commercial lobbying, so that we don’t get fooled again. In 2022, that seems an unlikely scenario.TopicsTelevision & radioTV reviewTelevisionDocumentaryClimate crisisFactual TVOilOil and gas companiesreviewsReuse this content More

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      Democrats announce plans to ‘go after’ big oil in effort to bring down prices

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      Democrats announce plans to ‘go after’ big oil in effort to bring down pricesNancy Pelosi says oil companies ‘hoarding the windfall while keeping prices high at the pump’ amid concerns over US inflation The Biden administration is to propose legislation that would allow US federal and state agencies to “go after” oil companies on wholesale and retail sales practices, lambasting the industry over price gouging and profiteering.As American voters express increasing concerns about the high prices of a wide range of consumer goods, including energy and food, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said passing legislation to bring down retail gasoline prices “is at the very top of our list”.‘We’re not attacking Russia,’ Biden says as he asks for $33bn in Ukraine aid – liveRead moreNeither Schumer nor House speaker Nancy Pelosi would say when such legislation will be voted upon, or how much money it could end up saving consumers if enacted into law.“Big oil has profiteered and exploited the marketplace,” Pelosi told reporters, noting companies’ strong corporate profits over the past year. “They are hoarding the windfall while keeping prices high at the pump,” she added.The move comes as gas prices have surged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite recent falls, the average price of a gallon of gas is now over $4 in the US, up from $2.88 a year ago, according to the American Automobile Association.Oil companies have enjoyed record profits as prices have soared. Exxon, the largest US oil company, is expected to report record earnings on Friday and rival Chevron recently reported “the best two quarters the company has ever seen”.Pelosi said the White House had discussed a “holiday” for Federal gas taxes but said that there was no evidence that oil companies would pass those savings on to consumers.Oil companies are not alone in reporting huge surges in profits even as consumers face higher bills thanks to soaring inflation. An analysis of 100 leading US companies found their net profits had risen by a median of 49%, and in one case by as much as 111,000%. The increases came even as prices rose and average wage increases were eroded by rising inflation.Reuters contributed to this storyTopicsOil and gas companiesUS politicsBiden administrationInflationEconomicsEnergy industrynewsReuse this content More

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      Big oil could bring US gas prices down but won’t – so hit it with a windfall tax | Robert Reich

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      Big oil could bring US gas prices down but won’t – so hit it with a windfall taxRobert ReichIn the US, in times of crisis, the poor pay the price and the rich cash in. Democrats know it doesn’t have to be this way This morning I filled my car with gas, costing almost six dollars a gallon. My car is a Mini Cooper I bought years ago, partly because it wasn’t a gas-guzzler. Now it’s guzzling dollars.Putin and Trump have convinced me: I was wrong about the 21st century | Robert ReichRead moreWhen I consider what’s happening in Ukraine, I say what the hell. It’s a small sacrifice.Yet guess who’s making no sacrifice at all – in fact, who’s reaping a giant windfall from this crisis?Big oil has hit a gusher. Even before Vladimir Putin’s war, oil prices had begun to rise due to the recovery in global demand and tight inventories.Last year, when Americans were already struggling to pay their heating bills and fill up their gas tanks, the biggest oil companies (Shell, Chevron, BP, and Exxon) posted profits totaling $75bn. This year, courtesy of Putin, big oil is on the way to a far bigger bonanza.How are the oil companies using this windfall? I can assure you they’re not investing in renewables. They’re not even increasing oil production.As Chevron’s top executive, Mike Wirth, said in September, “We could afford to invest more” but “the equity market is not sending a signal that says they think we ought to be doing that.”Translated: Wall Street says the way to maximize profits is to limit supply and push up prices instead.So they’re buying back their own stock in order to give their stock prices even more of a boost. Last year they spent $38bn on stock buybacks – their biggest buyback spending spree since 2008. This year, thanks largely to Putin, the oil giants are planning to buy back at least $22bn more.Make no mistake. This is a direct redistribution from consumers who are paying through the nose at the gas pump to big oil’s investors and top executives (whose compensation packages are larded with shares of stock and stock options).Though it’s seldom discussed in the media, lower-income earners and their families bear the brunt of the burden of higher gas prices. Not only are lower-income people less likely to be able to work from home, they’re also more likely to commute for longer distances between work and home in order to afford less expensive housing.Big oil companies could absorb the higher costs of crude oil. The reason they’re not is because they’re so big they don’t have to. They don’t worry about losing market share to competitors. So they’re passing on the higher costs to consumers in the form of higher prices, and pocketing record profits.It’s the same old story in this country: when crisis strikes, the poor and working class are on the frontlines while the biggest corporations and their investors and top brass rake it in.What to do? Hit big oil with a windfall profits tax.The European Union recently advised its members to seek a windfall profits tax on oil companies taking advantage of this very grave emergency to raise their prices.Democrats just introduced similar legislation here in the US. The bill would tax the largest oil companies, which are recording their biggest profits in years, and use the money to provide quarterly checks to Americans facing sticker shock as inflation continues to soar.It would require oil companies producing or importing at least 300,000 barrels of oil per day to pay a per-barrel tax equal to half the difference between the current price of a barrel and the average price from the years 2015 to 2019.This is hardly confiscatory. Those were years when energy companies were already recording large profits. Quarterly rebates to consumers would phase out for individuals earning more than $75,000 or couples earning $150,000.Republicans will balk at any tax increase on big oil, of course. They and the coal-industry senator Joe Manchin even tanked the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to the Fed because she had the temerity to speak out about the systemic risks that climate change poses to our economy.But a windfall profits tax on big oil is exactly what Democrats must do to help average working people through this fuel crisis. It’s good policy, it’s good politics and it’s the right thing to do.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      Kyrsten Sinema courted Republican fossil fuel donors with filibuster stance

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      Kyrsten Sinema courted Republican fossil fuel donors with filibuster stance Houston fundraiser reveals Democrat’s aggressive efforts to capitalize on her Senate power on matters ranging from climate to taxes With a crucial vote pending over filibuster rules that would have made strong voting rights legislation feasible, Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema flew into Houston, Texas, for a fundraiser that drew dozens of fossil fuel chieftains, including Continental Resources chairman Harold Hamm and ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance.The event was held on 18 January at the upmarket River Oaks Country Club. One executive told the Guardian that Sinema spoke for about half an hour and informed a mostly Republican crowd that they could “rest assured” she would not back any changes with filibuster rules, reiterating a stance she took several days before during a Senate speech.The Arizona senator also addressed some energy industry issues according to the executive, who added that overall he was “tremendously impressed”.The day after the Houston bash, Sinema voted against changing filibuster rules, thereby helping to thwart the voting rights bill.The Houston gusher of fossil fuel donations for Sinema from many stalwart Republican donors underscores how pivotal she has become, along with West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin, in an evenly divided Senate involving high-stakes battles for Republican and fossil fuel interests.Campaign finance watchdogs say that the Houston fundraiser reveals much about Sinema’s aggressive efforts to capitalize on her Senate power on matters ranging from climate change to taxes to the filibuster rule.“Sinema isn’t up for re-election this year, but she’s fundraising full-tilt,” Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of OpenSecrets, told the Guardian. “By her comment to oil-industry attendees last week, she clearly knew her vote to protect the filibuster would please them.”The Houston fundraiser, which was expected to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the senator’s campaign coffers, offers a stark example of how Sinema has been courting major Republican donors and special interests who, in turn, seem to be increasingly eager to help her.Sinema’s drive to rope in more big Republican donors was also apparent at a September fundraiser in Dallas at the $18m home of G Brint Ryan, a prominent Republican donor and CEO of a global consulting company, who hosted another money bash last year for Manchin.Sinema’s stance against changing filibuster rules has also won her support from other top Republican donors such as Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota billionaire broadcaster who gave her $2,900 last September, which reportedly was the first donation he made to a Democrat since 2019.Hubbard told the Guardian that her opposition to the filibuster was a crucial reason he donated, adding that it would “be terrible to get rid of the filibuster”, and that he thought voting rights were “just fine”, without passing a Democrat-backed bill to protect them.Little wonder that voting rights advocates were dismayed by Sinema’s staunch opposition to any changes with the filibuster.“We are very disappointed that Senator Sinema has put formalistic rules over protecting our democracy,” said Danielle Lang, the senior director of voting rights at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.Sinema’s position on the filibuster rule has sparked anger among liberal backers such as the powerful group Emily’s List, which endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights. One week after Sinema gave a floor speech indicating that she wouldn’t support altering filibuster rules, Emily’s List publicly stated that the group would no longer endorse her.In her floor speech backing the filibuster rule, Sinema touted the need for more bipartisanship, stressing that she would not “support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country”.But Sinema’s vote and speech only spurred more criticism in Arizona where the state Democratic party issued a rare censure in the wake of her continued support for the filibuster.Arizona’s Democratic party chair Raquel Teran has stated that the vote was a “result of her failure to do whatever it takes to ensure the health of our democracy”.More broadly, Democratic angst about Sinema was highlighted by a January tracking poll before her filibuster vote that showed just 8% of registered Arizona Democrats had a favorable view of the Senator.The recent poll reflects a steep drop from the 70% positive rating the Senator had in 2020. Her declining popularity also has been spurred by the senator’s voting against raising the federal minimum wage, and skipping a Senate vote to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 mob attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.Sinema has also drawn brickbats from Democrats for her unwillingness last month to endorse the House passed Build Back Better legislation that she and Manchin were instrumental in whittling down from the measure’s original size, while accelerating their fundraising outreach to rightwing donors and lobbyists.Sinema told Democratic senators according to the New York Times that she was opposed to any tax increases in personal rates or corporate rates to pay for the bill, which included approximately $550bn for clean energy and climate change measures, a crucial part of President Joe Biden’s agenda.Leftwing Vermont senator Bernie Sanders was especially irked when both Sinema and Manchin joined all the Senate Republicans in blocking the filibuster rule change, saying that they “forced us to go through five months of discussions which have gotten absolutely nowhere”, and indicating he might support primary challengers to both senators.Veteran Arizona Republican consultant Chuck Coughlin noted that Sinema “clearly understands the electoral position she is in, and is using this opportunity to raise as much as she can in order to make challenging her a herculean task – whether she runs as a Democrat or an independent.”Coughlin’s analysis seems on target based on the very robust $4.4m that Sinema’s campaign had in the bank at the end of September.Charlie Black, a longtime Republican operative and lobbyist, added that “Sinema’s gotten a lot of support from the business community, including both Republicans and Democrats.”Still, with Democratic attacks on Sinema increasing, the odds are good that if she opts to run again in 2024 she will have a primary opponent, perhaps Congressman Ruben Gallego, who has publicly suggested he might challenge her, and knocked the senator over her filibuster vote.A group called the Primary Sinema Project that began last summer has raised at least $330,000, including $100,000 during the week after her filibuster speech.Sinema’s drive to raise big bucks early seems to be underscored by the jump last year in donations from fossil fuel interests, according to campaign finance data.Last year, Sinema hauled in $24,310 from fossil fuel donors compared with just $7,522 the year before, according to OpenSecrets.Although there’s no data yet on how much Sinema raised in Houston, a veteran fossil fuel lobbyist told the Guardian that donors at such fundraisers are often asked to pony up the maximum of $5,800 to the senator’s campaign committee, and write another check for as much as $5,000 to the senator’s leadership Pac.For Krumholz of OpenSecrets, the Houston fundraiser offers a broader message.“The timing of the fundraiser and Sinema’s filibuster-protecting vote really puts a fine point on the return on investment for her donors.”Krumholz added that the fossil fuel fundraiser “seems well timed as Congress revisits the $550bn BBB measure focused on climate change provisions, where her vote could help industry minimize new regulatory and tax burdens.”TopicsOil and gas companiesUS SenateDemocratsUS politicsOilnewsReuse this content More

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      Exxon CEO accused of lying about climate science to congressional panel

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      Climate crimesEnvironmentExxon CEO accused of lying about climate science to congressional panelCongresswoman Carolyn Maloney likens oil company bosses’ responses to those of tobacco industry at historic hearing Supported byAbout this contentChris McGrealThu 28 Oct 2021 17.05 EDTFirst published on Thu 28 Oct 2021 16.33 EDTThe chief executive of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods, was accused of lying to Congress on Thursday after he denied that the company covered up its own research about oil’s contribution to the climate crisis.For the first time, Woods and the heads of three other major petroleum companies were questioned under oath at a congressional hearing into the industry’s long campaign to discredit and deny the evidence that burning fossil fuels drove global heating. When pressed to make specific pledges or to stop lobbying against climate initiatives, all four executives declined.Joe Manchin leads opposition to Biden’s climate bill, backed by support from oil, gas and coalRead moreThe chair of the House oversight committee, Representative Carolyn Maloney, pressed Woods about statements by his predecessor, Exxon CEO Lee Raymond, who in the 1990s said the scientific evidence for climate change was “inconclusive” and that “the case for global warming is far from air tight”. In 2002, Exxon ran advertisements in the New York Times calling climate science “unsettled”.Malone put it to Woods that Exxon’s own scientists had repeatedly warned the company about the threat from burning fossil fuels as far back as the 1970s.“There is a clear conflict between what Exxon CEO told the public and what Exxon scientists were warning privately for years,” she said.Woods denied that Raymond or Exxon misled anyone.“I do not agree that there was an inconsistency,” he said.Maloney said the response reminded her of “another hearing that we had with the tobacco industry”.“They said they did not believe that nicotine was addictive. Well, it came out that they lied. Tobacco nicotine was very addictive. And now I’m hearing from you that the science that was reported publicly, where your executives were denying climate change, we know that your scientists internally were saying that it’s a reality,” she said.“So I was hoping that you would not be like the tobacco industry was and lie about this.”The heads of the American operations of the other oil companies – Shell, Chevron and BP – were also firm in resisting pressure to admit they misrepresented climate science or deceived the public.They each said that they recognised global heating was a reality and a major challenge. But the executives did not accept that their companies had failed to take it seriously or that they were undermining attempts to cut greenhouse gases by funding trade groups pouring millions of dollars into lobbying Congress against tighter environmental laws.“We accept the scientific consensus,” said Michael Wirth, the CEO of Chevron. “Climate change is real. Any suggestion that Chevron is engaged in disinformation and to mislead the public on these complex issues is simply wrong.”But Maloney accused the oil companies of continuing the cover-up, including by hiding documents. She said she would take the unusual step of issuing subpoenas to force the firms to reveal what they knew.“We need to get to the bottom of the oil industry’s disinformation campaign and with these subpoenas we will,” she said.The oil and gas industry, which spent about $100m on political lobbying last year, was strongly backed by a number of Republicans on the committee who sought to distract by denouncing Joe Biden’s energy policies.Republicans called their own witness, Neal Crabtree, who said he lost his job as a welder within three hours of Biden being sworn in as president because the Keystone pipeline was cancelled. Crabtree was used to portray Biden as colluding with China and Russia against America’s oil industry.The highest-ranking Republican on the committee, Representative James Comer, questioned the legitimacy of the investigation. He said the committee would be better off spending its time investigating the White House’s handling of inflation, illegal immigration and the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.In a hearing meant to focus on climate misinformation, several Republican members openly questioned the urgency of the climate crisis. Representative Clay Higgins called the hearing “a threat from within” because the American way of life was built on oil.Another Republican member said Maloney owed the oil executives an apology for intruding on their right to free speech by pressing them to make a commitment that their firms will “no longer spend any money, either directly or indirectly, to oppose efforts to reduce emissions and address climate change”.None of the executives would make a direct commitment.Maloney showed the hearing a video secretly recorded by Greenpeace earlier this year of an Exxon lobbyist describing the oil giant’s backing for a carbon tax as a public relations ploy intended to stall more serious measures to combat the climate crisis.“How did Exxon respond?” asked Maloney. “Did they come clean about this shocking conduct? No. Mr Woods called Mr McCoy’s comments inaccurate and then they fired him. And they are obviously lying like the tobacco executives were.”While the oil executives largely maintained a united front, Representative Ro Khanna, a leading critic of the petroleum industry on the committee, drew out testimony that showed the European companies, Shell and BP, were working to cut production while the US firms, Exxon and Chevron, intended to increase drilling in the coming years.Wirth said that his company would raise oil production while cutting carbon admissions.The hearing also questioned the leaders of two powerful lobby groups accused of acting as front organisations for big oil, the American Petroleum Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce.Khanna noted that API was heavily funded by oil company money as it resisted the expansion of infrastructure for electric vehicles and opposed a methane fee backed by Biden, including flooding Facebook with advertisements in recent months.Khanna challenged each of the oil executives in turn to resign from API over its position on electric vehicles or to tell it to stop its opposition to a methane fee. All of them declined to do so.TopicsEnvironmentClimate crimesExxonMobilBPRoyal Dutch ShellChevronOil and gas companiesOilnewsReuse this content More