Speaker 1: Pr firms are paid to engage in unethical tactics that
Speaker 1: intimidate and silence Americans who are exercising their rights to
Speaker 1: support actions that combat climate change.
Speaker 2: Wealthy and powerful corporate entities are dragging citizens and public
Speaker 2: interest opponents through meritless, but protracted, and extremely costly litigation
Speaker 2: to expose anyone who dares to stand up to them
Speaker 2: to financial and personal ruin. In its work to silence
Speaker 2: its critics, the fossil fuel industry is also pushing for
Speaker 2: the passage of anti protest laws dressed up as critical
Speaker 2: infrastructure protection statutes.
Speaker 3: Documents don't lie. While BP touted carbon capture is key
Speaker 3: to its transition to cleaner fuel, the company privately hope
Speaker 3: this approach would quote enable the full use of fossil
Speaker 3: fuels across the energy transition and beyond end quote. We
Speaker 3: also found that Excellon spent near Lady seventy million dollars
Speaker 3: to advertise its research in alga based biofuels, but company
Speaker 3: documents revealed that technology is quote still decades away from
Speaker 3: the scale we need.
Speaker 4: WHEW. Last week was a big one for climate hearings
Speaker 4: wrap Katie Porter and her Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight
Speaker 4: Investigations has been looking into pr firms and their role
Speaker 4: in warping the public discourse on climate She had a
Speaker 4: hearing on that subject this past week.
Speaker 5: Rep.
Speaker 4: Jimmy Raskin and his Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and
Speaker 4: Liberties focused the third of his free speech hearings on
Speaker 4: attacks on environmentalists week, and Rep's Carolyn Maloney and Rocanna
Speaker 4: focused the third of their climate disinfo hearings this past
Speaker 4: week on climate justice and shared some explosive new documents
Speaker 4: that their investigation has uncovered. You just heard RUP's Porto,
Speaker 4: Rascin and Maloney up at the top of this episode. Today,
Speaker 4: I'll look at what happened in those hearings and what's
Speaker 4: resulting from them. That's coming up right after the break.
Speaker 4: I'm in me Westerveld and this is drilled. The House
Speaker 4: Oversight Committee is still waiting on oil companies to comply
Speaker 4: with their subpoenas, but in the meantime they have received
Speaker 4: an initial batch of documents, and some of them are
Speaker 4: pretty revealing. Despite its constant advertizing of algae biofuels. For example,
Speaker 4: apparently Exonmobile invests a tiny fraction in that program compared
Speaker 4: to what it invests in its fossil fuel portfolio, and
Speaker 4: internally company officials talk about the technology being decades away
Speaker 4: at best. I remember covering algae based biofuels back in
Speaker 4: the early two thousands, and scientists were saying that then
Speaker 4: two I was twenty years ago. The most damning document
Speaker 4: where Exon was concerned, though, was a draft policy from
Speaker 4: the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative. In it, the oil
Speaker 4: major asked the group to remove reference to the Paris Agreement,
Speaker 4: noting that quote support for the Paris Agreement goals and
Speaker 4: member company advocacy are separate concepts and not directly related.
Speaker 4: Creating a tie between our advocacy and engagements and the
Speaker 4: Paris Agreement could create a potential commitment to advocate on
Speaker 4: the Paris Agreement goals. Publicly, of course, Exon Mobil has
Speaker 4: proclaimed its commitment to the Paris Agreement over and over again.
Speaker 4: It claims to have supported it since twenty fifteen. Here's Rep.
Speaker 4: Maloney in the hearing.
Speaker 3: We obtained an eternal memo prepared for the CEO of Exxon,
Speaker 3: Darren Woods in twenty nineteen, and this memo shows how
Speaker 3: Exxon and Chevron work behind the scenes to drastically reduce
Speaker 3: and weaken climate pledges made by an industry called the
Speaker 3: Oil and Gas Climate Initiative. The MIMO shows that two
Speaker 3: companies wanted to remove any commitment for oil companies to
Speaker 3: quote align their advocacy with their climate related positions end quote.
Speaker 4: Both in the House Oversight Committee hearing and importers hearing
Speaker 4: on the use of PR to spin climate disinformation, Republicans
Speaker 4: and their witnesses made the same arguments over and over.
Speaker 4: It's a First Amendment violation to come after climate disinformation.
Speaker 4: Opinions you don't like aren't disinformation. Here's reporter and witness
Speaker 4: Christine Arena debunking the idea that you can't go after
Speaker 4: disinformation without stepping afoul of the First Amendment.
Speaker 1: Based on your experience, do you know what the standard
Speaker 1: practices are in the public relations industry?
Speaker 6: I certainly do.
Speaker 1: According to your written testimony, you wrote, quote there is
Speaker 1: nothing standard or ethical about the practices of the PR
Speaker 1: firms we are discussing today. What makes these practices different
Speaker 1: from the standard work PR firms perform for clients?
Speaker 6: You know, hiring fake protesters is unethical in multiple ways. First,
Speaker 6: they're fake protests. There's the simulation of community support or
Speaker 6: opposition that isn't really necessarily real. Secondly, it is not
Speaker 6: disclosed who is paying for and funding those paid protesters.
Speaker 6: And Thirdly, those paid protesters that I wrote about were
Speaker 6: actually engaging in what I believe for harassment behaviors, that
Speaker 6: is stocking Colorado Rising members as they were trying to
Speaker 6: make their voices heard. I do not believe that there
Speaker 6: is a single trade association in my industry that would
Speaker 6: consider the hiring of fake protesters to be an ethical
Speaker 6: marketing practice, and I certainly don't consider that standard.
Speaker 4: Congresswoman Laurie Trahan from Massachusetts also tried to make this
Speaker 4: basic point.
Speaker 1: I think one thing that's important to note is that
Speaker 1: we can have free speech and stop the spread of
Speaker 1: disinformation if we stop with the grand standing and just
Speaker 1: get to sensible policy making.
Speaker 4: That didn't stop a whole lot of what about is
Speaker 4: I'm on free speech? Here's Republican Representative Blake Moore from
Speaker 4: Utah in the pr hearing.
Speaker 7: This committee should be wary of any attempt to stifle
Speaker 7: the exercise of free speech, regardless of whether or not
Speaker 7: the majority agrees with the viewpoint.
Speaker 4: And here's Republican's favorite reformed environmentalist Michael Schellenberger, the minority
Speaker 4: witness in the Climate Disinfo hearing.
Speaker 7: As for misinformation about climate change and energy, it is
Speaker 7: rife on all sides, and I question whether the demands
Speaker 7: for censorship by big tech firms are being made in
Speaker 7: good faith or are consistent with the rights protected by
Speaker 7: the First Amendment.
Speaker 4: That reference to big tech firms was related to the
Speaker 4: Biden administration's attempt to crack down on COVID misinformation on Facebook,
Speaker 4: which somehow got trotted out all throughout these hearings despite
Speaker 4: having nothing to do with climate as proof that the
Speaker 4: administration is anti free speech. It's ironic that so many
Speaker 4: fossil fuel industry allies were so concerned about the free
Speaker 4: speech of corporations these hearings, while Rep. Raskin in his
Speaker 4: hearing was digging into the industry's very real, very well funded,
Speaker 4: and very effective efforts to quash the free speech of individuals.
Speaker 4: The Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Liberties was particularly focused
Speaker 4: on two key tactics, strategic litigation against public participation or
Speaker 4: slab suits, and the proliferation of anti protest laws or
Speaker 4: critical infrastructure laws which place steep fines and penalties on protests.
Speaker 4: Slapsuits are civil suits that are generally filed by companies
Speaker 4: against individuals or nonprofits that criticize or protest against them.
Speaker 4: They can be extremely costly and time intensive to fight,
Speaker 4: and thus have a chilling effect on civic action. If
Speaker 4: you listened to our season on the Chevron, Ecuador case,
Speaker 4: the suit filed against attorney's even Donziger was considered by
Speaker 4: most advocates to be a slap suit. In the wake
Speaker 4: of the Standing Rock protests in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen,
Speaker 4: Energy Transfer Partners sued Greenpeace and several activists in a
Speaker 4: massive slapsuit, part of which is still ongoing. The anti
Speaker 4: protest laws were part of the industry backlash to Standing
Speaker 4: Rock two, aimed at cracking down on pipeline protests in particular.
Speaker 4: These are both really clear examples of entities with more
Speaker 4: power limiting the free speech rights of individuals with less power,
Speaker 4: a textbook example of First Amendment infringement, unlike the case
Speaker 4: of a company not being able to lie to the
Speaker 4: public with impunity.
Speaker 8: My name is Deepa Pedmanaba and I am Deputy General
Speaker 8: Council for Greenpeace USI.
Speaker 4: PAD Manaben testified at Raskin's hearing last week. Greenpeace has
Speaker 4: had experience and stealing with both slabs and anti protest bills.
Speaker 8: Slaps and anti protest bills are really two sides of
Speaker 8: the same coin. There are tactics used by the same
Speaker 8: corporate actors to quash dissent. We have two lawsuits hanging
Speaker 8: over our heads, filed by one filed by Resolute Forest Products,
Speaker 8: another filed by Energy Transfer. The first lawsuit was filed
Speaker 8: in May of twenty sixteen, and that was by Resolute
Speaker 8: Forest Products, which is one of Canada's largest logging companies,
Speaker 8: and they suit us for one hundred million dollars alleging
Speaker 8: damages from a public campaign we had exposing the company's
Speaker 8: harmful business practices.
Speaker 4: And then in.
Speaker 8: August of twenty seventeen, a very similar suit was filed
Speaker 8: by Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline,
Speaker 8: and this was for three hundred million dollars for allegedly
Speaker 8: orchestrating the resistance at Standing Rock. And so these complaints
Speaker 8: were actually very similar, They had a similar template, and
Speaker 8: they were actually filed by the same lawyers. And so
Speaker 8: the lawyers behind these suits had actually indicated that they
Speaker 8: were shopping this tactic around, and it wouldn't be a
Speaker 8: surprise to see other corporations filing similar suits.
Speaker 4: In fact, she says she's seen an uptick in slaps
Speaker 4: being filed against environmentalists in the years since Standing Rock.
Speaker 8: So there has absolutely been an uptick in oil companies
Speaker 8: filing slaps over the last few years. But I would
Speaker 8: say what's even more concerning is their attempt to create
Speaker 8: new dangerous legal precedent through slabs. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 8: in August of twenty seventeen, we had the Energy Transfer
Speaker 8: suit filed. What I didn't mention is that although it
Speaker 8: was for three hundred million dollars, the company didn't stop there.
Speaker 8: Energy Transfer brought claims under the Federal Racketeer, Influence and
Speaker 8: Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO, And as many know, RICO
Speaker 8: was a law that was created to go after the
Speaker 8: mafia for organized crime. And what made even more dangerous
Speaker 8: was that it allowed for the recovery of treble damages.
Speaker 8: So we were suddenly looking at an almost one billion
Speaker 8: dollar lawsuit. An energy Transfer was alleging that our advocacy
Speaker 8: worked to uplift indigenous voices at Standing Rock constituted organized crime,
Speaker 8: and even though ultimately Energy Is Transfer's case was thrown
Speaker 8: out a federal court, in true slap like fashion, the
Speaker 8: company refiled an almost identical complaint in North Dakota State Court,
Speaker 8: which I should note lacks an anti slap statute, and
Speaker 8: it also named additional individual defendants. And this is the
Speaker 8: case we continue to fight today, five years later after
Speaker 8: the original federal suit was filed.
Speaker 4: Green Peace has also had activists arrested under anti protest laws.
Speaker 8: Greenpeace USA activists were arrested in twenty nineteen under Texas's
Speaker 8: felony Critical Infrastructure law for unfurling banners under bridge, which
Speaker 8: temporarily block shipping and brought attention to the connection between
Speaker 8: the oil industry and climate change. And while we were
Speaker 8: ultimately not charged under the law, you can of course
Speaker 8: see how both tactics are used by corporation is to
Speaker 8: silence descent.
Speaker 4: Currently, seventeen different states have these laws on the books,
Speaker 4: and according to Emma Fisher, one of the authors of
Speaker 4: a new report on these laws from the nonprofit Climate Cabinet,
Speaker 4: they've had bipartisan support in some states.
Speaker 5: One thing that's concerning is, of course, as expected We've
Speaker 5: seen these critical infrastructure laws passed primarily in Republican controlled states,
Speaker 5: but not without some democratic support, and so I think
Speaker 5: it's important to recognize that not all Democrats are holding
Speaker 5: the line on this issue either. And we've actually seen
Speaker 5: a critical infrastructure bill introduced in Illinois, which is a
Speaker 5: democratic trifecta state. We've seen other types of preemption laws
Speaker 5: introduced by Democrats in states like New Jersey, and so
Speaker 5: I think that's something to keep an eye out for that.
Speaker 5: You know, fossil fuel interests are they're going to work
Speaker 5: with any one who will work with them, and they're
Speaker 5: especially working in creative ways to get Democrats and labor
Speaker 5: groups on board.
Speaker 4: There's a similar hodgepodge of laws around slap suits. Thirty
Speaker 4: one states have anti slap statutes on the books, which
Speaker 4: enable the easy dismissal of meritless slap suits, but it's
Speaker 4: easy enough for corporations to venue shop and find a
Speaker 4: state without one, which is why Rep. Raskin introduced new
Speaker 4: federal anti slap legislation the day after his hearing. It
Speaker 4: will make its way through all of the usual painful
Speaker 4: political gears, but it has a decent shot at passing.
Speaker 4: Support for anti slap statutes has tended to be bipartisan,
Speaker 4: in part because companies have figured out a way to
Speaker 4: use them too. Earlier this year, Exxon, for example, invoked
Speaker 4: Massachusetts anti slap statute, calling Attorney General Mora Heey's fraud
Speaker 4: suit against the company a slap the argument it didn't work.
Speaker 4: That case is now moving into discovery, and when it
Speaker 4: goes to trial, Exon will make the argument that everything
Speaker 4: it's ever said about climate change is petitioning activity or
Speaker 4: political speech and thus protected by the First Amendment. That's
Speaker 4: it for this time. Thanks for joining us, and we'll
Speaker 4: see you back here next week.
Speaker 9: Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. The show was
Speaker 9: created and reported by me Amy Westervelt. Original music and
Speaker 9: mixing and mastering for this episode by Peter duff. Our
Speaker 9: artwork is by Matthew Fleming. You can find us online
Speaker 9: at Drilled podcast dot com. You can also find us
Speaker 9: on Twitter at we are Drilled.
Speaker 4: For ad free.
Speaker 9: Episodes and bonus content, you can sign up for our
Speaker 9: newsletter at drilled podcast dot com or our Patreon at
Speaker 9: patreon dot com.
Speaker 4: Slash drillt