Received by email from American Progress Action Fund. For version with hyperlinks to souce material, go to
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480Exxon Announces Merger With White House
Yesterday, it was announced that the former chief of staff of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality, Philip Cooney, who resigned five days ago after it was disclosed that he had doctored government climate change reports in favor of the oil industry's position, has been hired by Exxon Mobil. While Cooney will now sit at the other side of the table at the White House's energy meetings, his job will remain the same -- to do the bidding of the oil industry.
COONEY'S MAGIC MARKER ALTERED SCIENTIFIC REALITY: Just last week, the Government Accountability Project, a public interest group that promotes government accountability, disclosed documents to the New York Times that showed Cooney "repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between
emissions and global warming." One of the sentences that Cooney crossed out stated the following: " warming also will cause reductions in mountain glaciers and advance the timing of the melt of mountain snow peaks in polar regions." Cooney, who has no scientific training, wrote a note stating that the section "stray from research strategy into speculative findings," a position which goes against the findings of the scientific community that the greenhouse effect is accelerating changes in the climate.
DOES ACCRUED VACATION TIME AT THE WHITE HOUSE CARRY OVER TO EXXON?: Cooney chose to resign after the doctored reports became public. Instead of suggesting that it was ridding itself of a corporate crony, the White House went into a state of denial. White House spokesperson Dana Perino said his decision to leave was "completely unrelated" to the disclosure that he had made changes in several government climate reports, and that he had chosen to spend time with his family after having "accumulated many weeks of leave."
ONCE YOU GO OIL, YOU NEVER TURN BACK: Prior to joining the White House staff, Cooney was a former oil industry lobbyist who worked as the head of the climate program at the American Petroleum Institute (API), the chief representative of the oil and gas industry. Exxon is a major member of the American Petroleum Institute, and its CEO is a director of API's Policy Committee. Documents disclosed from Vice President Cheney's secret energy task force meetings showed that the American Petroleum Institute provided substantial input in the draft of Bush's energy plan. Exxon purchased its seat at the table by contributing nearly $100,000 to President Bush. API has been a steadfast opponent of the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce the level of greenhouse gases created by industrialized nations over the next decade. While Exxon has claimed that its opposition to the Kyoto climate change pact is based on its view that the protocol is "flawed," the reality is, as the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, that Exxon is "openly and unapologetically" opposed to "the notion that fossil fuels are the main cause of global warming."
EXXON HAS WIELDED GREAT POWER IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: Prime Minister Tony Blair recently returned home to London after a meeting with President Bush to report that they were unable to reach consensus on how to address global warming and climate change. The reason Blair was unsuccessful was that he ended up butting heads with an even closer friend to Bush than himself -- Exxon. According to documents obtained and recently disclosed by The Guardian, Bush's decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 was due in part to pressure from Exxon. Under Secretary of State Paula Dobrianksy wrote memos to Exxon thanking them for their "active involvement" in helping to determine the administration's climate change policy. She was explicit in her praise: "Potus rejected Kyoto in part based on input from you," she told Exxon. Exxon's relationship with Bush dates back to his days as governor of Texas, when he exempted big oil companies from a mandate that they clean up their emissions in favor of a voluntary program. The voluntary program was a concept pushed by Exxon at the time, and Exxon admitted that Bush had asked the company to "help develop the concepts" of the program.
REVOLVING DOOR BETWEEN BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND CORPORATE LOBBY CONTINUES TO SPIN: Cooney is only the latest example of a Bush official using his government job to leverage a position working for the industry he once regulated. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft became the first AG to open up a K Street lobbying firm. Ashcroft is now making money advising clients on law enforcement and homeland security. Former Commerce Secretary Don Evans took a job with the Financial Services Forum, where he will lobby for the country's biggest financial services firms. And former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge is now helping Savi Technology, a security technology firm, obtain grants from the federal government.
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