New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman started an investigation into ExxonMobil after a report said the oil giant lied about how the burning of fossil fuels affects climate change.
Alan Jeffers, a spokesman for ExxonMobil, confirmed subpoenas had been sent to ExxonMobil from Schneiderman’s office. The company is preparing its response, Jeffers said.
“ExxonMobil has included information about the business risk of climate change for many years in our 10-K, Corporate Citizenship Report and in other reports to shareholders,” Jeffers said.
“We unequivocally reject allegations that ExxonMobil suppressed climate change research contained in media reports that are inaccurate distortions of ExxonMobil’s nearly 40-year history of climate research that was conducted publicly in conjunction with the Department of Energy, academics and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
A request for comment to Schneiderman’s office was not immediately returned.
ExxonMobil has been under siege since the publication of a report in the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News last month. The report said the company knew in July 1977 that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels would warm the planet. After 10 years of exploring the problem, ExxonMobil — then just Exxon — decided to actively support researchers who would refute global warming.
According to the report, ExxonMobil learned in 1977 from a senior scientist that burning fossil fuels would warm the planet. A year later, the company began researching how carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels would affect the planet.
In 1982, the company prepared an internal document on carbon dioxide and climate change that said “major reduction” in fossil fuel use would be needed to avoid catastrophic events. While that was circulating, ExxonMobil didn’t tell regulators about the findings.
Six years after the internal document was produced, ExxonMobil went on the offensive, according to the report. The company began paying for efforts that would cast doubt on climate change, including founding the Global Climate Coalition.
Most scientists blame the burning of fossil fuels such as oil for releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise.
All of the Democratic presidential candidates have called on U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate ExxonMobil, as have two Democratic lawmakers and the leaders of 47 environmental groups.
In addition, four Democratic senators have asked ExxonMobil to turn over any evidence the company, its foundation or its affiliates donated, or matched employee donations, to Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. Those organizations began funding climate change denial groups in the mid-2000s, not long after ExxonMobil pulled its direct funding from those groups.
The senators believe ExxonMobil used Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund as a secretive way to fund climate change denial research.
