Left-wing nonprofits quietly coordinated a first-of-its-kind investigation into Big Oil led by the New York State Attorney General (NYAG) years ago, sparking dozens of current climate lawsuits, according to newly disclosed internal communications.
The communications — obtained by watchdog group Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) and shared with Fox News Digital — show Lee Wasserman, the longtime director of the billionaire-fueled Rockefeller Family Fund, and other climate advocates first pitched the idea of subpoenaing oil giant ExxonMobil to then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office in early 2015. [emphasis, links added]
Following months of coordination and dialogue between Wasserman, his associates, and NYAG officials, including current New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg who was leading NYAG’s Social Justice division at the time, Schneiderman subpoenaed ExxonMobil in November 2015.
Three years later, the NYAG filed a lawsuit against the multinational oil major, accusing it of fraud and misleading investors on global warming.
“These newly released emails and memos, withheld for seven years, document how outside ideological and political interests convinced law enforcement to launch investigations of political opponents — even over the New York AG Office’s own lawyers’ reservations — in service of a larger, planned lawfare offensive,” Chris Horner, an attorney representing GAO, told Fox News Digital. “They represent a civil libertarian’s nightmare.”
“This dispels beyond doubt the fiction of a ‘missing link’ between outside financial, ideological, and political lobbies and the nationwide campaign of lawfare brought by governmental plaintiffs and their partners in law enforcement,” he added.
“It puts the lie to claims that these suits are a series of unrelated, purely local actions: Every single ‘climate’ lawsuit has the DNA of this ‘Patient Zero’ case, weaponizing law enforcement against the ‘climate’ industry’s political opponents.”
According to the documents, which GAO recently received after a multi-year information request lawsuit, the Rockefeller Family Fund’s Wasserman emailed NYAG Environmental Protection Bureau Chief Lemuel Srolovic on Feb. 3, 2015, referencing a meeting they recently had regarding ExxonMobil.
In the email, Wasserman requested another meeting with Srolovic where his associates would present a “trove of material.”
That follow-up meeting was scheduled for Feb. 23, 2015, and included other climate activists who had for years argued ExxonMobil deceived the public on the impact of fossil fuels on global warming.
The other attendees were former Greenpeace USA Executive Director John Passacantando, Energy and Policy Institute Deputy Director Matt Kasper, Climate Investigations Center Founder Kert Davies, and Rockefeller Family Fund adviser Larry Shapiro.
“If the [fossil fuel] companies admitted what they know about climate science, it would almost certainly hasten greater regulatory changes to restrict the extraction of fossil fuels,” Wasserman wrote to Srolovic days before the meeting. “In our opinion, their work to confuse the public about the science has mismarked the value of their reserves, which supports their current stock valuations.”
“Even if greater regulation were not to occur, climate change will have meaningful financial consequences, both positive and negative, e.g. inundation of infrastructure and opening of the Arctic and other previously inaccessible places for drilling,” he continued.
Then, one month later, in March 2015, Wasserman sent a memo his organization crafted outlining the legal case against ExxonMobil to then-NYAG Chief of Staff Micah Lasher.
Minutes after receiving the Rockefeller Family Fund memo, Lasher then forwarded it to Bragg, Srolovic, NYAG senior lawyer John Oleske, and NYAG senior enforcement counsel Steven Glassman.
The memo notably resembles the arguments the state would eventually make in court.
“The Office of the New York Attorney General should investigate whether leading energy companies are conducting a scam to prop up their share prices by minimizing the risk that climate change poses to their business models,” the memo states. “That risk is simple: energy company valuations are driven by ‘proven reserves’ of oil, gas, and coal.”
“If the reserves cannot be used – because of regulation or an ecological disaster, two very real possibilities – energy stocks must fall,” it adds. “Energy companies prop up their current high valuations by disseminating misinformation about climate change and valuing reserves as if they had no chance of being stranded underground.”
The memo further states that ExxonMobil can be sued for violating the Martin Act of 1921 which grants the NYAG broad powers in investigating potential fraud. And it calls for the NYAG to subpoena the company for its internal climate studies and internal communications related to climate change.
But shortly after the NYAG officials reviewed the memo, Lasher contacted Wasserman, expressing concern about the suggested legal arguments. Still, despite the apparent questions, he said he was committed to pursuing the issue.
“Please do know that I want to find a way on this as much as you do,” he wrote to Wasserman on March 14, 2015. “What you may have heard from me today was a bit of vexed struggle as I balance needing all the help from thought partners as we can get with protecting the prerogatives of our office and the judgment of our attorneys.”
Following additional meetings and communications, Wasserman then sent an updated memo to the NYAG office in April 2015.
“Your staff is concerned that the fossil fuel companies might succeed in motions to quash subpoenas aimed at their spreading misinformation about climate change. This fear is misplaced,” the updated memo states.
“Your office can reduce the chance of motions to quash ever being filed by sending out initial discovery requests without alerting the press,” it continues, explaining how the NYAG can avoid publicity.
“Martin Act investigations can be completely confidential, so if a case fails to materialize the inquiry can be abandoned without publicity.”
Former Attorney General Schneiderman eventually issued the subpoena against ExxonMobil on Nov. 4, 2015.
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Someone is profiting of this whole Global Warming/Climate Change scam then just Gore the Bore and Con Artists DiCaprio
Rockefeller must be spinning in his grave given that those billions being used to go against the very industry he created. And for it to be wasted on the “climate change” scam.