ExxonMobil executives repeatedly claim their company supports a federal carbon tax and the Paris climate agreement. The company’s checkbook ledger, however, tells a far different story.
Recently, the company released its annual list of its “public information and policy research” grantees, which shows that it spent $1.65 million in 2016 on a dozen think tanks, advocacy groups and associations that contest climate science and oppose both the Paris accord and a carbon tax — the very policies the company professes to endorse. Last year’s outlay boosted the total of the company’s expenditures on climate disinformation over the last two decades to $34.6 million…
…The fact that ExxonMobil’s grantees contradict the company’s avowed positions on climate science and policy should come as no surprise. Its funding pattern in Congress is analogous. Over the years, the company has consistently rewarded legislators who reject mainstream climate science and vote against carbon tax resolutions by funding their reelection campaigns. Half of the nearly $1.45 million it spent on candidates in the 2016 election cycle, for example, went to 81 climate science deniers in the House and 24 in the Senate. And 18 of the 22 senators who sent a letter to President Trump urging him to abandon the Paris agreement collectively received $371,000 in campaign contributions from ExxonMobil between 2011 and 2016.
Source: ExxonMobil Talks a Good Game, but It’s Still Funding Climate Science Deniers
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