Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush

[Stockholm]

President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the Guardian.

The documents, which emerged as Tony Blair visited the White House for discussions on climate change before next month's G8 meeting, reinforce widely-held suspicions of how close the company is to the administration and its role in helping to formulate US policy.

In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable.

Other papers suggest that Ms Dobriansky should sound out Exxon executives and other anti-Kyoto business groups on potential alternatives to Kyoto.

more http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1501646,00.html

[acmejack]

1. why is this no surprise?

More evidence as to who actually runs this Country...

[patdem]

2. Exxon sets America's Environmental Policy...Even Orwell couldn't

write that into 1984..it would be too implausible! :grr:

[enough]

3. More lies.

snip>

Until now Exxon has publicly maintained that it had no involvement in the US government's rejection of Kyoto. But the documents, obtained by Greenpeace under US freedom of information legislation, suggest this is not the case.

"Potus rejected Kyoto in part based on input from you ," says one briefing note before Ms Dobriansky's meeting with the GCC, the main anti-Kyoto US industry group, which was dominated by Exxon.

snip>

[starroute]

18. Paula Dobriansky herself is a PNAC-er

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/dobriansky/dobriansky.php

Alongside her government work, Dobriansky has actively supported or worked for a number of conservative policy institutes, including the Hudson Institute, the Independent Women’s Forum, and Freedom House. She has also been a supporter of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), having signed several of PNAC’s early public letters, including its founding statement of principles, which called for a “Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity,” and championed America’s “unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.”

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Paula_Dobriansky

Her sister, Larisa Dobriansky, has also been on/off in the U.S. government dealing with environmental issues, e.g., active against the Kyoto Agreements.

And the Independent Women's Forum -- as Talking Points Memo is currently telling us -- is a front for Koch Industries.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_06_05.php#005793

There's just no end to the fun.

[SpiralHawk]

4. Another story the American corporate media will urgently ignore

pathetically

[lawladyprof]

5. Love of money is the root of all evil

and much human suffering. That is actually the meme we should be pounding--over and over and over again.

[mbperrin]

6. I'm shocked, shocked to find that corporatism is going on in here!

Who'da ever thought that THIS administration would kow-tow to corporations, huh? Who'da?

Think I'll go lie down now (while * can lie up or down or sideways - he's that kind of liar!)

[Mountainman]

7. The question is, why does this come from foreign news services?

Why doesn't the media in this country report any of the workings of this administration? I'd like the Guardian to be on every doorstep in this country.

[cthrumatrix]

8. politicians report to corporations ...... it's as clear as day

[sabra]

9. Why do I find myself getting all my news from foreign news agencies?

nominated

[unhappycamper]

10. here's how

http://www.dekorraproducts.com.nyud.net:8090/Images/money-stackLrg.jpg

[rockedthevoteinMA]

11. Mother Jones had a whole section devoted to this in their May/June issue

Some Like It Hot By Chris Mooney

WHEN NOVELIST MICHAEL CRICHTON took the stage before a lunchtime crowd in Washington, D.C., one Friday in late January, the event might have seemed, at first, like one more unremarkable appearance by a popular author with a book to sell. Indeed, Crichton had just such a book, his new thriller, State of Fear. But the content of the novel, the setting of the talk, and the audience who came to listen transformed the Crichton event into something closer to a hybrid of campaign rally and undergraduate seminar. State of Fear is an anti-environmentalist page-turner in which shady ecoterrorists plot catastrophic weather disruptions to stoke unfounded fears about global climate change. However fantastical the book’s story line, its author was received as an expert by the sharply dressed policy wonks crowding into the plush Wohlstetter Conference Center of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). In his introduction, AEI president and former Reagan budget official Christopher DeMuth praised the author for conveying “serious science with a sense of drama to a popular audience.” The title of the lecture was “Science Policy in the 21st Century.”

Crichton is an M.D. with a basketball player’s stature (he’s 6 feet 9 inches), and his bearing and his background exude authority. He describes himself as “contrarian by nature,” but his words on this day did not run counter to the sentiment of his AEI listeners. “I spent the last several years exploring environmental issues, particularly global warming,” Crichton told them solemnly. “I’ve been deeply disturbed by what I found, largely because the evidence for so many environmental issues is, from my point of view, shockingy flawed and unsubstantiated.” Crichton then turned to bashing a 1998 study of historic temperature change that has been repeatedly singled out for attack by conservatives.

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are causing global average temperatures to rise. Conservative think tanks are trying to undermine this conclusion with a disinformation campaign employing “reports” designed to look like a counterbalance to peer-reviewed studies, skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism, and events like the AEI luncheon that Crichton addressed. The think tanks provide both intellectual cover for those who reject what the best science currently tells us, and ammunition for conservative policymakers like Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who calls global warming “a hoax.”

This concerted effort reflects the shared convictions of free-market, and thus antiregulatory, conservatives. But there’s another factor at play. In addition to being supported by like-minded individuals and ideologically sympathetic foundations, these groups are funded by ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company. Mother Jones has tallied some 40 ExxonMobil-funded organizations that either have sought to undermine mainstream scientific findings on global climate change or have maintained affiliations with a small group of “skeptic” scientists who continue to do so. Beyond think tanks, the count also includes quasi-journalistic outlets like Tech CentralStation.com (a website providing “news, analysis, research, and commentary” that received $95,000 from ExxonMobil in 2003), a FoxNews.com columnist, and even religious and civil rights groups. In total, these organizations received more than $8 million between 2000 and 2003 (the last year for which records are available; all figures below are for that range unless otherwise noted). ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Lee Raymond serves as vice chairman of the board of trustees for the AEI, which received $960,000 in funding from ExxonMobil. The AEI-Brookings Institution Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, which officially hosted Crichton, received another $55,000. When asked about the event, the center’s executive director, Robert Hahn—who’s a fellow with the AEI—defended it, saying, “Climate science is a field in which reasonable experts can disagree.” (By contrast, on the day of the event, the Brookings Institution posted a scathing critique of Crichton’s book.)

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/some_like_it_hot.html

As The World Burns News: A Mother Jones special project on global warming http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/world_burns.html

When/if you have the time, this is a detailed indepth accounting of the energy companies funding (with large amounts of money) scientists to "disprove" the theory of global warming.

[starroute]

17. exxonsecrets.org

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php

An eye-opening database of just what groups ExxonMobil is funding. All the major right-wing and anti-environmental groups, plus a few surprises. (Like the International Republican Institute -- the do-it-yourself regime changers. Interesting . . .)

[City Lights]

12. This confirms what most of us suspected.

Seeing it in black and white still makes me :puke: though. The US press corpse lives up to its name once again.

[readmylips]

13. No News, little george's blood is oil...

It's like saying, Hilton Hotels influenced Paris Hilton....dah!

[Roland99]

14. FVCK the SCOTUS for caving on the Energy Task Force case

:mad:

[unblock]

16. again, it wasn't a "cave" it was an eager and willing coverup

[unblock]

15. pressure? PRESSURE? what a load of HORSEHOCKEY

saying that this was a result of exxonmobil "pressure" implies that the banana republicans WANTED to sign up for the kyoto accords and RESISTED requests from oil companies and only after this unspecificed "pressure" did they relucatantly agree to drop the accords.

um, no.

more likely, exxonmobil made one call and the kyoto accords were dead and shrub was happy to do it.

if there was any pressure, it was from the shrubbies shaking exxonmobil down for campaign contributions, as in, "sure, we'd be happy to help you destroy the environment, but this will look bad in some eco-centric districts, so you'll have to pony up some campaign bucks to the following districts: ...."

[Zorra]

19. The REPUBLICAN party is FILTHY from the ground up.

It is so really frustrating that so many people in this country can not see this.

The entire function of the republican party is to take money from huge corporations in exchange for doing favors for them.

They make me sick.

[cthrumatrix]

21. let's hear from our Rethuglican's on this...we're waiting???????

[samsingh]

20. have not found mention of this on any US news website

i find that i look at this website, Buzzflash, and the HuffingtonPost for my news - before going to the mainstream news websites. The bias and stupidity of the mainstream media has and will continue to destroy their importance.

[Zerex71]

22. What a shocker!

[Doctor_J]

23. This is supposed to be news?

:wtf:

[IChing]

24. Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush (Exxon Kyoto )

White House sought advice from Exxon on Kyoto stance

John Vidal, environment editor
Wednesday June 8, 2005
The Guardian

President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the Guardian.
The documents, which emerged as Tony Blair visited the White House for discussions on climate change before next month's G8 meeting, reinforce widely-held suspicions of how close the company is to the administration and its role in helping to formulate US policy.


In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable.
Other papers suggest that Ms Dobriansky should sound out Exxon executives and other anti-Kyoto business groups on potential alternatives to Kyoto.

Until now Exxon has publicly maintained that it had no involvement in the US government's rejection of Kyoto. But the documents, obtained by Greenpeace under US freedom of information legislation, suggest this is not the case.>>>>snip

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1501646,00.html

I know you all are so surprised once again that Exxon and Bush would lie.

[Greyskye]

25. recommended

with a :kick:

:argh: :wtf: :grr: :nuke: :banghead: :puke:

[hatrack]

26. And just guess what story MSNBC was following at approx. 11:30 CDT?

That's right, MICHAEL JACKSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This country deserves whatever - WHATEVER - it gets.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

27. kick

[hatrack]

28. Kicking because I can

.

[Canuckistanian]

29. Wouldn't have made it through GOP Congress anyways.

Remember, the Kyoto Accord was signed by Clinton and he probably knew that it wouldn't be ratified by the GOP majority.

So, why all the attention paid to Bush's "influences"? They could have pushed him over with a feather. He's ONE OF THEM.

Kyoto was always a dead duck ever since it was signed.

[The_Casual_Observer]

30. Anybody see the exxon/mobil commercial that claims they

are at the forefront of climate change research?

[Canuckistanian]

31. Yeah, research on possible DEBUNKING of climate change

Ever notice that EVERY major climate change denier has received funding or attention from some oil company-funded organization?

[hatrack]

32. Yes, they leave no stone unturned in their search for science whores

They'll do whatever it takes to make the obvious seem just un-obvious enough to delay any meaningful action for just one more quarter, just two more quarters, just one more year - time we are running out of rapidly.

[wallwriter]

33. Yeah, like how can they make global warming happen more quickly.

Even Fortune Magazine was astonished by the huge pile of cash--many billions--that Exxon Mobil is sitting on, wondering what to do with.

[high density]

34. Aww, isn't the corporatism so cute?

Thanks Bush and ExxonMobil!

[foo_bar]

35. ...