ExxonMobil increased its lobbying efforts on behalf of a carbon tax, as critics continue their inquisition against the company, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Exxon has given piecemeal pro-carbon tax arguments in the past, though it’s currently ramping up its call for the tax, as pressure mounts for the company to counter environmentalist claims it is contributing to so-called man-made global warming.
Top officials in the company met with officials in Washington, D.C. about related legislation meant to reduce carbon emissions, according to Exxon’s recent lobby disclosure forms. The beleaguered oil producer has met with trade groups such as the American Petroleum Institute (API), among others, to explain its position on the tax.
Meanwhile, API is forming an internal task force to investigate policies on global warming, as well as future messages on climate issues.
“The political environment has shifted so dramatically with Paris, with the ‘keep it in the ground’ campaign having controlled the conversation, with a president making climate change policy part of his legacy,” one source told reporters with Politico. “So it makes sense for API to be reviewing its approach to climate.”
API’s task force could give the lobbying group the opportunity to create a bulwark against environmentalists, anti-oil activists, and attorneys general who allege Exxon purposely hid information about climate change.
“Of the policy options being considered by governments, we believe a revenue-neutral carbon tax is the best,” Suzanne McCarron, Exxon’s VP of public and government affairs, wrote in May for the Dallas Morning News.
McCarron went on to explain how Exxon has placed a proxy price on carbon in their business planning since 2007. The proxy cost, she wrote, “in some regions may approach $80 per ton,” and tries to “reflect all types of actions and policies that governments may take with respect to carbon-based fuels.”
Other companies in the fossil fuel industry are noting the shift in Exxon’s position.
“Previously Exxon’s positioning on a carbon tax had been passive—‘Hey, we’re not loving it, but we’re not going to get in the way of it,’” Michael McKenna, president of the lobbying firm MWR Strategies, who represents several energy companies, but not Exxon. “In just the last six months, there’s been an uptick in how they are asserting themselves in meetings about how to address this issue.”
Carbon tax proposals have become a controversial topic for many large oil companies over the past several years, prompting some to question whether their support for the tax is a genuine desire to reduce carbon emissions or a cudgel to keep smaller energy companies from horning in on their market.
Ten of the world’s largest oil companies – BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total, among others – acknowledged in a letter to U.N. climate official Christiana Figueres last May they are joining an initiative calling for carbon pricing. Most of the signers are international companies.
Conservative activist and Ohio’s former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell argued in January that Exxon’s carbon tax push is nothing short of “crony capitalism,” wherein large companies use government regulations to throttle their competitors.
Exxon is also one of the largest natural gas producers in the country, Blackwell explained in an editorial in May, so advocating a carbon tax would naturally give them an “edge” over the competition – coal companies, as well as other, smaller, natural gas companies.
The former secretary of the state of Ohio pointed to a section of the companies’ letter to Figueres where it notes a carbon tax would “help stimulate investments in the right low carbon technologies and the right resources at the right pace.”
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