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8/1/2016 CLIMATE: Fossil fuel backers accused of'calculated disinformation' — Thursday, June 23, 2016 — www.eenews.net
public and shareholders on climate change. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.l.) wrote an opinion piece in The
Washington Posf accusing fossil fuel companies and their allies of running a "massive and sophisticated
campaign to mislead the American people about the environmental harm caused by carbon pollution."
He charged that fossil fuel companies were following the "Big Tobacco playbook."
"The Big Tobacco playbook looked something like this," Whitehouse wrote. "(1) pay scientists to produce
studies defending your product; (2) develop an Intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt
about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents."
In the opinion piece, Whitehouse raised the possibility of a lawsuit against the industry using the federal
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act, the same law that the government successfully
used to litigate against tobacco companies.
Whitehouse served as a U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration. In an interview in his office last month,
Whitehouse said the opinion piece arose partly out of his experience as an "inside-the-organization bystander"
in the federal government's litigation against tobacco companies.
As a senator, Whitehouse said he began paying attention to the work of Oreskes and others who were making
links between the tobacco and fossil fuel industry.
"The more I studied the climate denial operation, the more It reminded me of the tobacco [case]," Whitehouse
said. "So atone point I asked my staff to dredge out the tobacco complaint that DOJ filed to read it again, and I
thought, 'Wow, that's pretty compelling.'"
The Rhode Island senator said that the response to a recent Judiciary Committee hearing In March, in which
Attorney General Loretta Lynch testified, reinforced his thinking. At the hearing, Whitehouse questioned Lynch
about the status of requests for investigations of Exxon.
Whitehouse was concerned, he told E&E Daily, that the Justice Department was attempting to bury requests for
a civil investigation - similar to the government's investigation of tobacco companies ~ at the FBI, which deals
more with criminal cases.
Lynch confirmed that the Justice Department had discussed the matter and that the FBI was determining
whether or not an Investigation was warranted.
Dozens of conservative columnists and some editorial boards have cited that exchange since then, many
arguing that Whitehouse was attempting to block free speech. One piece goes as far as to compare
Whitehouse to the Torquemada, the Grand Spanish Inquisitor. And last month, a group of Senate Republicans
used the exchange in calling for the Justice Department to stop looking Into fossil fuel companies' climate
disclosures.
The similarity of the responses — none of which mention the tobacco Industry - Is telling, Whitehouse said,
"Groups organized around the fossil fuel industry coordinate very well with each other, and they've moved from
just simply creating phony climate science and creating phony doubt about climate science to having more of a
pushback operation," he told E&E Daily, "and it's particularly triggered by concerns about investigating their
patrons."
GOP, allies brace for defense
But Republican allies of the fossil fuel industry In Congress are accusing green groups and their friends on the
state and federal level of a well-funded and well-organized conspiracy to go after oil and gas companies using
the same strategy that brought down Big Tobacco.
They've largely focused on reconstructing a timeline of when environmental groups first aimed to target fossil
fuel companies with federal and state fraud and racketeering litigation.
In recent weeks. Republican members of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee homed in on
a 2012 workshop as proof that environmentalists have been conspiring for years.
In June of that year, the Climate Accountability Institute and Union of Concerned Scientists held a workshop In
California to explore strategies to fight the fossil fuel industries in the courts.
The workshop produced a document titled "Establishing Accountability for Climate Change Damages: Lessons
from Tobacco Control" that In part called for working with state attorneys general to subpoena documents on
climate change.
The letter from Republicans went on to charge that members ofthat2012 workshop worked closely with state
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