{"id":951,"date":"2021-11-20T03:55:10","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T03:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/?p=951"},"modified":"2021-11-20T05:31:02","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T05:31:02","slug":"exxon-lobbyists-paid-the-6-democrats-named-in-sting-video-nearly-333000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/exxon-lobbyists-paid-the-6-democrats-named-in-sting-video-nearly-333000\/","title":{"rendered":"Exxon lobbyists paid the 6 Democrats named in sting video nearly $333,000"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new analysis takes a wide look at the company\u2019s influence in Arizona, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and West Virginia.<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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AP Photo\/Richard Drew<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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This story was originally published by HuffPo and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exxon Mobil Corp. lobbyist Keith McCoy listed six Democrats the oil giant saw as key allies to push its legislative agenda in the Senate in a secretly recorded sting video Greenpeace UK published late last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New analysis of campaign disclosures found the six Democratic senators \u2015 Mark Kelly (Arizona), Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Chris Coons (Delaware), Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona) and Jon Tester (Montana) \u2015 received a combined total of nearly $333,000 from lobbyists, political action committees and lobbying firms affiliated with Exxon over the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analysis of campaign disclosures, which the advocacy group Oil Change U.S. conducted and HuffPost reviewed, found Tester received the most in donations from Exxon Mobil \u2015 $99,783 from seven lobbyists, the company\u2019s PAC and four lobbying firms working for the firm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report includes some donations lobbyists at K Street behemoths such as Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck gave before taking on Exxon Mobil as a client. Spokespeople for Coons and Sinema said including those contributions in the total was \u201cmisleading\u201d and \u201cinaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Collin Rees, the senior campaigner at Oil Change U.S. who conducted the analysis, said the donations paint a fuller picture of Exxon Mobil\u2019s influence taking stock of the relationships the company\u2019s money helped cultivate as well as those that may have prompted the oil giant to hire certain lobbyists in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a story about how lobbyists curry favor, and specifically about how Exxon\u2019s current lobbyists have spent decades currying the favor of these six Democrats to position themselves to do things like safeguard fossil fuel subsidies and pare down infrastructure packages,\u201d Rees said. \u201cExxon has hired these firms and lobbyists because they\u2019ve contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to these Democrats, both before and after they were hired by Exxon.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Counting donations from lobbyists like Arshi Siddiqui, some of which came before Exxon Mobil hired her, makes Sinema the No. 2 recipient on the list, with $70,800 in contributions from eight Exxon Mobil lobbyists, the company PAC and three lobbying firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInclusion of those contributions would be incredibly misleading,\u201d John LaBombard, a spokesman for Sinema, said of money that came from lobbyists who also work for other clients. \u201cKyrsten\u2019s work in the Senate is influenced by only one thing: what is best for Arizona.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coons came in third with $68,650 from seven lobbyists, the PAC and four lobbying firms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the other ones that aren\u2019t talked about is Senator Coons, who\u2019s from Delaware, who has a very close relationship with Senator Biden,\u201d McCoy said in the now-viral video, in which he believed he was talking to corporate headhunters in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. \u201cSo we\u2019ve been working with his office. As a matter of fact, our CEO is talking to him next Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unclear whether a meeting with Exxon Mobil chief Darren Woods took place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manchin, meanwhile, received the fourth-most donations, at $64,864, followed by Hassan at $26,699. Kelly, who took office last December and declined all corporate PAC money, accepted just $1,500, which came from two Exxon-registered lobbyists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn the Democrat side, we look for the moderates,\u201d McCoy said. \u201cSo it\u2019s the Manchins. It\u2019s the Sinemas. It\u2019s the Testers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond seeking out right-leaning senators, McCoy said the company looked for \u201cwho\u2019s up for reelection in 2022?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s Hassan,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s Kelly.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokeswoman for Hassan pointed to the senator\u2019s 98% voting score from the League of Conservation Voters and noted that \u201cthe video only says that Senator Hassan is up for re-election \u2026 it isn\u2019t for her support of their policies but simply because she is up for re-election.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesman for Kelly said: \u201cSenator Kelly has not met with the individual in the original Exxon video, and hasn\u2019t spoken with anyone from this company in the Senate. Senator Kelly also does not accept corporate PAC contributions to his campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tester\u2019s office did not provide a comment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exxon Mobil said it \u201ccomplies with all federal and state regulations and lobbying laws.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a responsibility to our customers, employees, communities and shareholders to represent their interests in public policy discussions that impact our business,\u201d said Todd Spitler, an Exxon Mobil spokesman. He said McCoy\u2019s remarks \u201cdo not represent the company\u2019s position on a variety of issues, including comments regarding interactions with elected officials.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the video, McCoy said Exxon Mobil is \u201cplaying defense\u201d as the Biden administration and its slim Democratic majority in Congress seek to enact the country\u2019s most significant climate legislation ever, including voting on an infrastructure package with billions of dollars for clean energy and electric vehicles as well as looking to pass a 100% clean electricity standard through budget reconciliation.https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dNFBjcrU5Pc?feature=oembed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The push comes amid cascading climate disasters \u2015 from deadly heat waves on one coast to historic flooding on the other \u2015 that scientists say will grow worse and more frequent if fossil fuel use continues unabated. Even the International Energy Agency, hardly a tree-hugging institution, projects that averting catastrophic warming means \u201cfrom today, no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But influence peddling is nothing new for the $258 billion company, which served as one of the chief financiers of a network of climate denial think tanks throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Today, Exxon Mobil funds trade associations that lobby against climate policies while offering a rhetorical contrast to oil giants that advocate for politically unpopular proposals unlikely to reach fruition in a bid to look like responsible actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donations don\u2019t necessarily equal political clout. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the lead champions of ending fossil fuel use, previously accepted campaign contributions from lobbyists linked to Exxon Mobil. He returned them in 2019, but the incident highlighted just how tightly woven oil companies are into the fabric of American politics and, as a result, how difficult it can be to avoid threads that ultimately lead back to the fossil fuel industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a 2017 Ohio State University study indicates the donations have a measurable effect, particularly as they enter the five-figure range. For every $10,000 a lawmaker received from a major industrial polluter like Exxon Mobil, their probability of voting for pro-environmental legislation decreased by 2%, according to the study of donations between 1990 and 2010 published in the journal Environmental Politics. For Democrats, the effect of the donations was even stronger, reducing likelihood of a pro-environmental vote by 3%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of whether it swings votes, firms like Exxon Mobil give \u201cmoney to secure access to politicians,\u201d said Tyson Slocum, the energy program director at the anti-corruption group Public Citizen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile securing access doesn\u2019t guarantee results, it ensures the company can influence the thinking and positions taken by the politician receiving the money,\u201d Slocum said, noting that he condemned Greenpeace UK\u2019s \u201cdeceptive tactics\u201d to dupe McCoy. \u201cAnd the result shows that Exxon does indeed appear to influence these and other elected officials to which it contributes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel at the watchdog Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said corporate lobbyists \u201cexpect something in return\u201d when they make political donations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a result, when Exxon\u2019s lobbyists, PACs and lobbying firms make donations to particular senators, we have to ask ourselves what do they expect and what did they get in return,\u201d said Canter, a former ethics counsel for the Obama and Clinton administrations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sting video has prompted new scrutiny of Exxon Mobil beyond its campaign contributions. The New Republic examined the company\u2019s routine six-figure donations to centrist think tanks such as the Brookings Institution. On Monday, the advocacy group Physicians for Social Responsibility published a new report indicating that the oil giant uses so-called forever chemicals \u2015 a family of cancer-causing water contaminants known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS \u2015 to drill at roughly 1,200 wells across six U.S. states.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Exxon Mobil\u2019s use of PFAS were more widely known, McCoy said in one part of the video, environmentalists would likely \u201cstart talking about how this is an Exxon Mobil chemical and Exxon Mobil is poisoning our waterways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the public accepts that framing of reality, he said, \u201cthe debate is pretty much<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new analysis takes a wide look at the company\u2019s influence in Arizona, Delaware, Montana, New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":960,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whatistandfor.co\/fightingcorruptionandworkriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}