Exxon lobbyist pressured lawmakers to remove climate measures from Biden’s initial $2 trillion infrastructure plan, report says

  • Date: 01-Jul-2021
  • Source: Business Insider
  • Sector:Economy
  • Country:Gulf
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Exxon lobbyist pressured lawmakers to remove climate measures from Biden’s initial $2 trillion infrastructure plan, report says

Whether to include climate provisions in an infrastructure plan has been a major point of contention between Republican and Democratic lawmakers. But new recordings reveal outside influences may have also had a hand at determining the role climate should play. The UK's Channel 4 News obtained from Unearthed, Greenpeace UK's investigative platform, that showed a lobbyist for oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, Keith McCoy, saying the company had fought legislative action on climate change. He was talking on a call in which Unearthed investigators posed as headhunters looking to hire a lobbyist for their client. McCoy said he had lobbied key senators to remove or diminish climate change measures from President Joe Biden's original $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, and he added that ExxonMobil had joined "shadow groups" to pursue climate change denial. "Why would you put in something on emissions reductions on climate change to oil refineries in a highway bill?" McCoy said in the recording. "So, people say, 'Yeah, that doesn't make any sense,' so then you get to the germane of saying that shouldn't be in this bill." In a lengthy statement to Channel 4 News, ExxonMobil said that Greenpeace has waged a "multi-decade campaign" against the company,