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Hoboken Aims For RICO As API Aims At Pennsylvania, Ohio And New York Campaigns In 2024 [1]

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Date: 2023-05-18

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the lobby group funded and led by ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and other major oil companies, is one of the biggest and oldest climate disinformation operations around. That's why it's being sued for its climate disinformation campaign, and why Hoboken, New Jersey has just added an allegation of breaking state RICO laws, a possibility that popped up some years back .

Here's how the new Statement of the Case for Hoboken's lawsuit begins: "Defendants have conspired to deceive the world for decades." And here's how they describe API: "API has participated in and led several coalitions and front groups, often in collaboration with the Fossil Fuel Company Defendants, that have organized deceptive advertising and communications campaigns that promote climate disinformation and denialism."

Emily Sanders at ExxonNews explains : "API’s knowledge of climate change dates back to the 1960s, when the association formed task forces and committees to study the consequences of burning fossil fuels. But instead of disclosing what they learned to the public, API formed the so-called 'Global Climate Science Communications Team' (GCSCT) in 1998 — a group whose members included Exxon, Chevron, and other fossil fuel defendants in Hoboken’s case, but not a single actual scientist."

Twenty five years later, and API hasn’t exactly given up its sinful ways. As the news broke that API is getting charged with the same law New Jersey used to prosecute mobsters, the trade association was breaking news of its own that, it turns out, sort of validates the allegations that it’s at the center of a sprawling illicit influence campaign.

On Twitter, API announced a "new analysis" that it paid PricewaterhouseCoopers to cook up (the " faking science" step of the disinfo playbook) that lets it claim the "industry supported 10.8 million jobs and contributed nearly $1.8 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2021." On its " Energy Builds America " webpage, there’s a job and economic breakdown for each state on a US map. But then only the top 15 states got individual, new, updated-for-2023 pages, as opposed to the old 2021 data for the national level.

So why is API promoting a report with data from 2021 about the economy in 2019 , in 2023? And why does the report only discuss a handful of the 50 states? As usual, the oil industry isn't obvious or direct, but it's not subtle, either. As one might expect from an organization charged with racketeering, it let someone else do the dirty work.

Specifically, API handed the job to Ramsey Touchberry at The Washington Times, who, to be clear, we are not in any way accusing of taking money from API or being formally part of any sort of RICO scheme. But while API's report and promotional material focused on the supposed value of the oil and gas industry to the country, it was Touchberry who revealed the report’s real strategic value, right in his headline: “ How energy prices will shape key House and Senate races in 2024 .”

Touchberry described API's report as though it were a targeting and messaging guide for political operatives: "A report released Tuesday by the American Petroleum Institute, the leading lobbyist group for the oil and natural gas sector, showed Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York — all of which have pivotal House and Senate races in 2024 — are among the top six states with the highest economic contributions from traditional energy sources."

In case it wasn't obvious for whom the report is intended, Touchberry makes it clear: "Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania are up for reelection in battleground races that will be crucial for their party to maintain its one-seat majority in the upper chamber. In New York, House Republicans need to hold onto swing districts like those represented by Reps. Mike Lawler and George Santos to keep their slim majority."

And lest there were any remaining doubts that API is aware of and supporting this blatantly political interpretation of their product, Touchberry quotes API Media Relations Director Christina Noel, who said this is “why senators like Manchin, Tester and Casey are carefully navigating” energy issues in their reelection bids.

Let's see if we can get this straight. The same day API was accused of breaking a law against using your power and money to influence others to do your dastardly bidding, the Big Oil-funded lobby shop released an updated version of a report it paid a top-dollar consultancy to produce that lauds its industry backers' benefits in key states. Then, a conservative columnist immediately turned API's Big Oil-funded content into political talking points that Republicans, whose campaign coffers are filled with oil money, can use to get elected. Those same elected Republicans will then no doubt proceed to use their power to help API's Big Oil backers' bottom lines.

It may not meet the bar for RICO, but it sure reeks o' something bad!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/18/2170002/-Hoboken-Aims-For-RICO-As-API-Aims-At-Pennsylvania-Ohio-And-New-York-Campaigns-In-2024

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