Exposing Exxon's Bad Behavior

By Sunny Lewis, Environment News Service. Posted July 14, 2005.

Changing ExxonMobil's corporate behavior is the mission of a new environmental campaign called ExxposeExxon.com. Calling for a boycott of the company's products, stocks, and workforce, campaigners from 12 of America's largest public interest and environmental groups showed up outside ExxonMobil service stations nationwide Tuesday.

"For years, ExxonMobil has intentionally put its own profits above a clean environment and the health of America's families. As a result, we are asking all Americans not to accept a new job at ExxonMobil, invest in the company, or to buy ExxonMobil's gas and products," stated the ExxposeExxon coalition in a letter sent Tuesday to ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond at the company's Irving, Texas headquarters.

The ExxposeExxon campaign began campaigning yesterday in more than 50 cities, including Washington, DC, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Des Moines, Honolulu, New York, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia. The coalition will work through the Internet, through the news media, through door-to-door contact, bumper stickers and T-shirts.

The campaigners object because the corporation is lobbying Congress to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling. They point out that ExxonMobil is the only oil company remaining in Arctic Power, the single-issue group lobbying to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling.

In a response to the boycott on its website, ExxonMobil said Tuesday the company supports "responsible" development of the Arctic refuge.

"We believe that with more than 30 years of industry experience on Alaska's North Slope and with recent technological advancements, ANWR can be developed with little threat to the ecology of the Coastal Plain," the company says.

ExxonMobil says it has no rights to acquire any property in the Coastal Plain, and "critical data, such as seismic, is virtually nonexistent, making a meaningful interpretation and forecast of resources difficult."

But the company says that "since energy sources are critically important to energy security and to support US economic growth, development of this area could contribute to domestic oil production and to a reduction of US dependence on foreign oil for many years.

The campaigners charge that ExxonMobil has been "trying to avoid paying all the damages due to those harmed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill."

ExxonMobil says, "The Valdez oil spill in 1989 was a tragic accident that the company deeply regrets. The company took immediate responsibility for the spill, cleaned it up and voluntarily compensated those who claimed direct damages."

"An Alaska jury set the actual damages of the Valdez accident at $287 million. ExxonMobil immediately and voluntarily paid more than $300 million to all those affected by the spill and the trial court in Anchorage commended us for acting so quickly. In addition, ExxonMobil spent $2.2 billion on the spill cleanup, continuing the effort from 1989 until 1992, when both the State of Alaska and the U.S. Coast Guard declared the cleanup complete."

"With regard to the Valdez punitive damages, the award has twice been thrown out by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is a strong indication that there is a sound basis to ExxonMobil's arguments that the amount of punitive damages is excessive."

The appellate court referred the case for punitive damages back to federal district court Judge H. Russell Holland in light of two Supreme Court rulings. Judge Holland's decision awarding $4.5 billion to the plaintiffs, plus interest in the amount of $2.5 billion, has been appealed again by ExxonMobil, as it appealed his first award of $5 billion and his second award of $4 billion.

The Scarlett Law Group, a firm of California environmental disaster lawyers based in San Francisco, represents some 750 businesses, including fishermen, crew, fish processing facilities, cannery workers, tender boat operators, landowners, natives, and others harmed by the devastation left in the wake of the Exxon Valdez.

The law firm says, "Rather than devise a plan to provide adequate compensation to those harmed by its grossly negligent conduct, Exxon resolved that it would not assist those harmed by its egregious conduct unless forced to do so by the victims in Court. Without the plaintiffs' lawyers bringing suit on behalf of those harmed, the victims were assured of receiving nothing from Exxon."

Sunny Lewis is editor-in-chief of Environment News Service, an independently owned wire service covering the environment.

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