Environmental groups on Wednesday said they will not comply with subpoenas issued by House science committee Republicans targeting a probe by Democratic state attorneys general into Exxon Mobil.
The anti-fossil fuel group 350.org and Greenpeace USA said the Republicans’ subpoena, issued by Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is the “latest attempt by Exxon’s congressional allies to chill the work of climate justice organizations to hold Exxon and the fossil fuel industry accountable for their decades of climate deception.”
An attorney for the activists sent a letter to Smith on Wednesday formally stating that neither Greenpeace nor 350.org will be complying with the demands of the subpoena, explaining that they offered to meet with the science committee to discuss the climate investigations but were instead met with legal action by the chairman.
The letter said they “decline to comply with the vague, overbroad and unconstitutional demands” of the subpoena.
Attorneys general in New York and Massachusetts subpoenaed Exxon Mobil and free-market groups associated with the company for years of emails and documents related to climate change. The attorneys general started their investigation after news outlets reported Exxon had covered up research by its own scientists that showed burning fossil fuels contributed to climate change and posed a risk to the company. The Virgin Islands attorney general also subpoenaed a free-market think tank, but later dropped it.
The attorneys general in those two states are the only two who have filed subpoenas out of a group of 20 attorneys general who got together earlier this year to promise to work on climate change using their law enforcement powers.
The states say they want to prove that the company, by withholding the information, has defrauded shareholders and the public from vital information related to their health and well-being. The Democratic National Committee platform released at this week’s convention in Philadelphia supports targeting fossil fuel companies for withholding information on climate change.
“Despite all parties repeatedly offering to engage in further dialogue, Rep. Smith quickly issued a total of 10 subpoenas to groups including 350.org, Greenpeace USA and other nongovernmental organizations, as well as to the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts around their investigations to determine if Exxon committed fraud,” the environmental groups said.
May Boeve, director of 350.org Action, said Smith “seems more interested in violating our rights to free speech than he is in investigating Exxon’s potential fraud.”
Meanwhile, the conservative Energy & Environment Legal Institute and the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic filed suit against the Rhode Island attorney general, “seeking specific records detailing that office’s collaboration with other activist AGs promoting the ‘climate’ political agenda through investigating those who dissent against it.”
The groups were spurred to take legal action after the Wall Street Journal reported that the attorneys general and activists had proposed to use anti-racketeering laws to go after companies that sought to cover up climate change data.
The groups said earlier this month that Rhode Island offered “absurd reasons for not providing the agreement itself” in requests seeking the release of documents to the public detailing their plan.
“These crusading AGs have yet to explain why they are so afraid of the public learning about their investigations,” E&E Legal said. “Why are they invoking absurd claims to try and withhold documents — and writing themselves a blank check to exempt themselves from the public records laws their citizens’ elected representatives thought they should be subject to? Why are they forcing people to sue to obtain these public records?”
