by Thomas Richards
Blasting News

Washington state’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) has a message for U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R): bugger off. At least when it comes to his state and its investigation of ExxonMobil over charges it tried to hide global warming from the public. Smith, who is the chairman of the House Science Committee, recently sent letters to the 17 U.S. Attorneys General (AGs) pursuing ExxonMobil under the RICO statute. Smith has asked for any communications with green groups, the EPA, or each other as it relates to the oil giant’s so-called climate change denial…

Participants gathered Jan. 8 at the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) headquarters, a left-wing foundation, to discuss using the RICO statute to silence climate change skeptics. According to a copy of the meeting agenda, the RFF, Greenpeace, and other environmental groups discussed ways to “delegitimize [ExxonMobil] as a political actor, force officials to disassociate themselves from Exxon, and drive divestment from Exxon.”

Big Green activists even discussed using left-leaning AGs, who have vast discretionary powers, to go after ExxonMobil and bring climate change and fossil fuels into the 2016 election. Emails obtained by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute in April showed how Schneiderman and other politically aligned AGs covertly teamed up with anti-fossil fuel activists to target groups whose political rhetoric challenged President Obama’s catastrophic global warming narrative.

Read more.