The chairman of the House Science oversight subcommittee on Thursday asked ExxonMobil to hand over a list of grants the company awarded from 2006 to date in an attempt to see if the oil giant is still paying think tanks to distort public opinion on global warming.
Rep. Brad Miller (D-North Carolina) requested (.pdf) information on the amount and purpose of the grants after reading a new Greenpeace report that claims ExxonMobil has continued to fund climate change skeptics even though the company has publicly denied doing so.
Exxon has paid conservative think tanks such as the Competitive
Enterprise Institute millions of dollars over the last decade to influence public opinion and the media on global warming. Naturally,
Exxon has tried to bury this like sludge on a beach. Slick PR packages that trumpet Exxon's humanitarian efforts misstate or conceal the company's ongoing efforts to undermine global warming science, according to Greenpeace.
A 2005 "World Giving Report" disguised or failed to reveal the purpose of 14 Exxon climate science grants, a sleight of hand that Greenpeace revealed by breaking down Exxon's IRS tax forms. The 2006 giving report report indicates that Exxon is still giving money to more than 40
"global warming denial groups," according to Greenpeace.
None of which made Miller happy. "Your use of profits from fossil fuels to confuse the public about the implications of their reliance on your product is irresponsible," he wrote. "ExxonMobil has not stopped supporting climate skeptic organizations, as past statements from officials of the Corporation suggested would be the stance of the company."
