Message From the Editor

During her Senate confirmation hearing this week, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett said some really troubling things that indicate her lack of understanding of the scientific consensus on climate change. Responding to questions on the subject, she resorted to the old “I’m certainly not a scientist” line that’s so popular among climate science deniers. And she claimed not to know what Donald Trump’s views on climate change are. I guess she’s not on Twitter much?

As Dana Drugmand reports, Barrett belongs to the Federalist Society, the right-wing legal network with ties to climate deniers and polluting interests like Koch Industries and ExxonMobil. Her father was a lawyer for Shell, and she used to work at a firm that represented Exxon and Shell. With the fate of climate liability lawsuits likely to escalate to the Supreme Court at some point, Barrett’s questionable ability to accept settled science would add another challenge to holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for their denial, delay and damaging pollution. Speaking of which, check out Dana’s excellent reporting on the current status of ongoing climate litigation too.

Meanwhile, amid a record wave of bankruptcies, the U.S. oil and gas industry is on the verge of defaulting on billions of dollars in environmental cleanup obligations. Guess who would probably be stuck with the cleanup bills? As Justin Mikulka reports, the U.S. taxpayers may end up paying to clean up millions of oil and gas wells that these bankrupt companies leave behind in their wake of failure. Wasn’t the “free market” supposed to take care of all this?

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

P.S. We couldn’t do our public interest journalism and research on climate deniers and the fossil fuel industry without the support of readers like you. Can you donate $10 or $20 right now?

Amy Coney Barrett’s Remarks on Climate Change Raise Alarm That a Climate Denier Is About to Join the Supreme Court

— By Dana Drugmand (8 min. read) —

During her Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, October 13, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett trotted out a tired and dismissive refrain from climate deniers, saying, “I’m certainly not a scientist” when Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) asked specifically about her views on climate change.

After Barrett said she doesn’t have “firm views” on the subject, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) pressed her on those views during the hearing Wednesday, where she continued to dodge the question. “I don’t think that my views on global warming or climate change are relevant to the job I would do as a judge,” Barrett said, adding, “I haven’t studied scientific data. I’m not really in a position to offer any informed opinion on what I think causes global warming.”

With Bankruptcies Mounting, Faltering Oil and Gas Firms Are Leaving a Multi-billion Dollar Cleanup Bill to the Public

— By Justin Mikulka (11 min. read) —

Amid a record wave of bankruptcies, the U.S. oil and gas industry is on the verge of defaulting on billions of dollars in environmental cleanup obligations.

Even the largest companies in the industry appear to have few plans to properly clean up and plug oil and gas wells after the wells stop producing — despite being legally required to do so. While the bankruptcy process could be an opportunity to hold accountable either these firms, or the firms acquiring the assets via bankruptcy, it instead has offered more opportunities for companies to walk away from cleanup responsibilities — while often rewarding the same executives who bankrupted them.

Exxon and Other US Oil Companies Lag in Responding to ‘Existential Threat’ of Energy Transition, Report Warns

— By Sharon Kelly (7 min. read) —

U.S. oil majors like Exxon and Chevron are failing to grapple with the energy sector’s transition away from polluting fossil fuels and refusing to disclose potential risks to their portfolios from assets that may become “stranded,” or uneconomical to develop, in a low-carbon world, new research from the London-based think tank Carbon Tracker shows.

Exxon, for example, stands to lose at least 80 percent of its business-as-usual petroleum investments if the world takes action to limit global temperature rise to 1.6 degrees C (2.9 degrees F), a limit that is within the “well below 2 degrees C” goal prescribed in the Paris Climate Agreement.

Trump's COVID Denial Mirrors Romney’s Climate Denial in 2012, Hurting Election Bid

— By Steve Horn (7 min. read) —

Back in 2012, climate science denial created an “October Surprise” moment for the presidential election and a turning point against the presidential prospects of Republican candidate Mitt Romney. In 2020 science denial is again a game changer, this time for Republican President Donald Trump, who has continued to downplay COVID-19’s seriousness, even after he was hospitalized for the disease which has killed more than 210,000 Americans.

A month before Hurricane Sandy reached landfall first in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and then New York City, killing 37 people in New Jersey and 44 in New York, and causing $70 billion worth of damage, Romney downplayed the threat of the climate crisis.

Op-ed: Battered by Hurricanes and Pollution, It Is Time for Louisiana to Imagine Life Beyond Oil

— By environmental communication professor and Louisiana native Ned Randolph (6 min. read) —

Living in Louisiana, reconciling the environmental harm caused by the state’s often celebrated oil and petrochemical sectors amounts to cognitive gaslighting.

The state experiences one of the highest relative sea-level rise rates in the world while it breathlessly promotes its oil and gas sector. It celebrates proposed expansions to its petrochemical corridor even as noxious fumes sicken residents and plastics litter its streams and rivers.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: The Federalist Society

The Federalist Society, of which Amy Coney Barrett is a member, is a right-wing legal network founded in 1982. The Society has consistently published articles and hosted debates that frame investigations into ExxonMobil and think tanks that question the existence of man-made climate change as attacks on free speech. The group has also regularly hosted talks by individuals who oppose the mainstream consensus on man-made climate change including Willie Soon, Oren Cass, Steven Hayward, and others.

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database or our new Koch Network Database.