Mobile Oil

Who would you say manned Bush's advisement team to back out of the Kyoto treaty: A) A well-versed, documented group of objective environmental scientists B) a group of across-the-aisle political advisors in US government; or C) ExxonMobile?

The correct answer is C) ExxonMobile, one of the largest multi-national oil corporations around.

President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the Guardian.

The documents, which emerged as Tony Blair visited the White House for discussions on climate change before next month's G8 meeting, reinforce widely-held suspicions of how close the company is to the administration and its role in helping to formulate US policy.

In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable.

And for additional fun: Interested in how much money a huge oil corporation like ExxonMobile dumps into ultra-right Think Tanks in America, and what kind of strange publications or policy designs those think tanks spend that money on?

Check out this great post on DailyKos by Plutonium Page.

ExxonMobile certainly is not the only huge corporation doing this, with such dramatic results of huge policy changes. Just ten or so years ago, the corporations most-disected in this fashion would have been tobacco companies. Hopefully Americans can bypass the raw thirst for energy and will scrutinize these huge energy interests and the corruption contained within them, as well as their attempts to push money through these organizations to change cultural attitudes and policy in their favor.

Every huge Corporation should be disected to uncover how they fund their interests, and how it breaks apart the public ability to have maningful representative government.