All the billions ExxonMobil spent on PR went up in flames this week after a sting operation by Greenpeace recorded one of the oil giantâs lobbyists talking about what goes on behind the scenes — sabotaging climate legislation, secretly manufacturing cancer-causing chemicals, and using trade groups as âwhipping boysâ to evade public scrutiny.
âItâs pretty damning stuff,â said Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard researcher who investigates fossil fuel propaganda.
The lobbyist, Keith McCoy, has been representing Exxon on Capitol Hill for eight years, chatting with senators as a senior director of the companyâs federal affairs team. Earlier this year, an undercover reporter with Unearthed, an investigative site run by Greenpeace, posed as a recruiter and got in touch with McCoy.
In the resulting Zoom job interview in May â segments of which first aired on the British network Channel 4 on Wednesday â McCoy outlines the ways that Exxon is actively sabotaging climate legislation and trying to avoid public scrutiny. A second installment of the interview aired on Thursday revealed that Exxon manufacturers and uses so-called âforever chemicalsâ linked to cancer, hormone disruption, and more â and used the American Petroleum Institute, a trade organization, to lobby against legislation that would regulate the chemicals.
The oil giant has a well-established history of sowing public doubt about the science of climate change despite knowing its catastrophic potential. But in recent years, Exxon has taken some climate-friendly stances, backing a carbon tax, supporting the Paris Agreement, and committing to help the Biden administration and Congress pass new laws to take on climate change. McCoyâs comments, however, suggest that was all for show.
In the video recording, McCoy admits that Exxon fought to undermine climate science and legislation. âDid we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes,â he tells the undercover reporter. âDid we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these âshadow groupsâ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, thatâs true. But thereâs nothing illegal about that. You know, we were looking out for our investments, we were looking out for our shareholders.â
McCoy talks about his cozy relationships with members of Congress. He apparently has weekly chats with Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia who has received tens of thousands of dollars from Exxon and its trade associations, and names 10 other senators he calls âcrucialâ to Exxonâs business. McCoy explains how Exxonâs lobbying helped remove the ânegative stuffâ â in other words, the landmark climate change measures â from President Joe Bidenâs infrastructure bill currently in Congress.
During an interview on Channel 4 Thursday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, remarked how rare it was to hear about Exxonâs intervention in climate policy as it was happening, as opposed to finding out about it from investigations years later. âThere is an understanding that thereâs a dark underbelly of Washington that works this way,â she said. âRarely do we see it exposed in real-time of real legislation right before us in Congress.â
McCoy also says in the recording that the companyâs support for a carbon tax is simply a âtalking pointâ to avoid public pressure. Given the lack of appetite for this kind of tax, he says, itâll never happen: âThe bottom line is itâs going to take political courage, political will in order to get something done. And that just doesnât exist in politics. It just doesnât.â
The secret tapes âprove straight from the horse’s mouth, straight from an Exxon insider, what our and othersâ research has indicated for so long,â Supran said. âAlthough Exxon and the fossil fuel industryâs tactics have evolved, the end goal remains the same, and that is to stop action on climate change.â
In a response to the debacle, Exxonâs CEO condemned and apologized for McCoyâs comments. Darren Woods said that the statements âin no way represent the companyâs position on a variety of issues, including climate policy, and our firm commitment that carbon pricing is important to addressing climate change,â adding that McCoyâs remarks were âentirely inconsistent with the way we expect our people to conduct themselves.â On LinkedIn, McCoy wrote that he was âdeeply embarrassedâ by what he had said on camera.
Supran suggested that Exxonâs apology was more of a âsorry we got caughtâ sentiment. âThis guyâs paid to further the position of the company on Capitol Hill, and the idea that heâs so out of the loop that heâs misrepresenting the company seems quite far-fetched,â he said.