Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s likely choice to be America’s top diplomat as Secretary of State, has spent years funding climate change denial and underwriting efforts to block measures to address climate change while misleading the public, according to evidence compiled by the Center for Media and Democracy.
As CMD detailed in a joint complaint filed with the IRS shortly before the election, Exxon has used the American Legislative Exchange Council “as a key asset in its explicit campaign to sow uncertainty about climate science, undermine international climate treaties and block legislation to reduce emissions.”
This includes attacks on the Clean Power Plan which sets out modest steps to try to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change being caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
CMD reviewed thousands of pages of evidence obtained through open records requests, original research, and public financial documents to detail how under Rex Tillerson’s leadership Exxon used a charity, ALEC, to advance legislation of direct benefit to the company.
According to CMD’s evidence, over a 17-year period, Exxon and its foundation spent more than $1.7 million to finance lobbying activity by ALEC as a charitable tax write-off. Tillerson has been the CEO of Exxon for 12 of those years.
As noted by Eric Havian, a partner at the law form of Constantine Cannon who specializes in tax law, CMD’s evidence shows that Exxon has used “ALEC’s charitable status to fuel its disinformation campaign on climate change, so taxpayers are literally paying Exxon to lie to them.”
Havian prepared the complaint based on research by CMD’s general counsel, Arn Pearson, its research director, Nick Surgey, and its researcher, Jamie Corey, and filed the evidence with the IRS Whistleblower Office under Common Cause’s initial 2012 complaint, which followed CMD’s launch of ALECexposed.org.
With Tillerson at the helm of Exxon, the company has paid ALEC to have a leadership role in its operations, both on the its…