The Virgin Islands’ attorney general is pursing conservative groups by demanding Exxon Mobil turn over its communications with them.
AG Claude Walker is suing Exxon, accusing them of suppressing its scientists’ evidence of climate change.
It’s been difficult to see an unredacted copy of Walker’s subpoena, even though he filed his suit in March.
But it reportedly shows the AG demanding more copies of corporate discussions about doing nothing with climate findings.
Walker wants all communications between Exxon and think tanks Heritage Foundation, Freedom Works, Cato Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, the Heartland Institute, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, the Manhattan Institute and the Media Research Center.
He also targets industry groups including the Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Oil and Gas Association and the National Black Chamber of Commerce, according to the unredacted copy of the subpoena reported on by the Washington Times.
The Attorney General subpoenaed the Competitive Enterprise Institute, another free-market think tank, earlier this year for all records on its activities related to climate change, and a complete list of the group’s donors.
“This is the latest effort in an intimidation campaign to criminalize speech and research on the climate debate, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and former Vice President Al Gore,” CEI said in a statement last month.
It is fighting to quash the subpoena.
The unredacted Exxon subpoena also shows Walker going after communications between Exxon and Arizona State University, George Mason University, Lindenwood University, the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St. Louis, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University.
Individual academics are targeted, including MIT professor emeritus Richard Lindzen, University of Alabama climate scientist John Christy and climatology professor David R. Legates of the University of Delaware.
Exxon filed a brief in a Texas state court last month to have the attorney general’s demands dismissed.
