Energy

Exxon Feeling The Heat From Billionaire-Backed Green Group

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A Nebraska-based, billionaire-funded, anti-fossil fuel group is pushing Iowa’s attorney general into investigating ExxonMobil, among other oil producers, for hiding its knowledge of so-called man-made global warming.

Bold Alliance, a self-proclaimed grassroots group, is circulating a petition across the Hawkeye State asking citizens to advocate their state’s attorney general, Tom Miller, begin investigating Exxon.

The group’s campaign’s origins can be traced back to a September investigation of ExxonMobil conducted by InsideClimate News and others. The investigation found that Exxon had allegedly covered up its knowledge concerning global warming.

InsideClimate News, which is funded in part by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, also alleges that Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, and others joined ExxonMobil, in misleading the public about the supposed effects global warming has on sea levels.

“Some of our states’ highest legal experts see the clear indications of fraud that Exxon has engaged in over decades, “Jane Kleeb, the Bold Alliance president, said in a press statement on the group’s website.

She added: “Exxon knew their business model would make climate change worse, affecting everything from Agriculture to where families can live, and yet they continued to hide the science and fund a network of deception.”

The campaign against Exxon and other oil companies gained renewed steam after a bevy of attorneys general from New York, Maryland, Virginia, among others, urged state attorneys generals investigate Exxon and potentially prosecute the oil behemoth if it broke the law.

They are calling themselves “The Green 20,” in reference to the number of attorneys general currently involved in advocating robust action against fossil fuel companies.

Kleeb said she looks forward to more state attorneys general following the lead of the “Green 20.”

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works accused Kleeb’s group of being “an arm of the Billionaire’s Club” in a report it published in July 2014.

“It is nothing more than a shield for wealthy and distant non-Nebraskan interests who seek to advance a political agenda without drawing attention to the fact that they, too, are outsiders with little connection to the state,” the report states.

The report cited claims the New York Times made in a 2014 biography on Kleeb, in which it stated her group, Bold Alliance, uses its knowledge of grassroots organizing as a tactic to sell itself to California billionaire money men like Tom Steyer.

The report also states George Soros, another billionaire philanthropist based in San Francisco, donated more than $50,000 to Bold Alliance in 2012, with another $15,000 donation coming Soros’ Tides Foundation.

Soros’ money made up more than one-third of Bold Alliance’s funding in 2012.

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