ExxonMobil Accuses California of Violating Its Free Speech (theverge.com) 61
ExxonMobil has sued California, claiming the state's new climate disclosure laws violate its First Amendment rights by forcing the company to report greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks using standards it "fundamentally disagrees with." The Verge reports: The oil and gas company claims that the two laws in question aim to "embarrass" large corporations the state "believes are uniquely responsible for climate change" in order to push them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. There is overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels cause climate change by trapping heat on the planet. [...] Under laws the state passed in 2023, "ExxonMobil will be forced to describe its emissions and climate-related risks in terms the company fundamentally disagrees with," a complaint filed Friday says. The suit asks a US District Court to stop the laws from being enforced.
[...] ExxonMobil's latest suit now says the company "understands the very real risks associated with climate change and supports continued efforts to address those risks," but that California's laws would force it "to describe its emissions and climate-related risks in terms the company fundamentally disagrees with." "These laws are about transparency. ExxonMobil might want to continue keeping the public in the dark, but we're ready to litigate vigorously in court to ensure the public's access to these important facts," Christine Lee, a spokesperson for the California Department of Justice, said in an email to The Verge.
[...] ExxonMobil's latest suit now says the company "understands the very real risks associated with climate change and supports continued efforts to address those risks," but that California's laws would force it "to describe its emissions and climate-related risks in terms the company fundamentally disagrees with." "These laws are about transparency. ExxonMobil might want to continue keeping the public in the dark, but we're ready to litigate vigorously in court to ensure the public's access to these important facts," Christine Lee, a spokesperson for the California Department of Justice, said in an email to The Verge.
Corporate free speech is bollocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corporate free speech is bollocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corporate free speech is bollocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. Companies already have so many rights and advantages the people don't (being immortal for example)
In this case it's the owners of the companies. They get to take the money out of the company, or sometimes put money in to pay for actions, knowing that it can't be taken back or them effectively sued because of the "Limited Liability". The LLC company is a creation of the government through the companies laws which protects the owners from the actions of the company, which is supposed to be on the grounds that it's the officers of the company that are responsible for the company, not the owners.
The office themselves are then protected by dissipated responsibility, the limited set of controls on them and by professional liability insurance. In the most desperate cases simply by nominating a person who has no money to lose. What happens though is that since the owners can replace the CEO and other officers of the company at will, the company ends up doing the will of the owners of the company but with no effective government control.
The left wing / "social responsibility" solution would be that the company should be regulated and ensure it does the right thing.
The right wing / "personal responsibility" solution would be to make the owners responsible for the actions they command.
As it is, we have the worst of all worlds. An entity which has government immunity and at the same time is fully personally controlled.
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To be fair, that isn't really what limited liability is about. It doesn't protect anyone from criminial liability in the case of negligence or criminal activity. All it means is that if you own shares in a company and that company owes money to third parties, those third parties cannot come after you and your assets for payment, they can only come after the company and its assets.
You can lose your shares but nothing more that that - your finanical liability is limited to your share ownership.
For any public
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To be fair, that isn't really what limited liability is about.
It isn't want it is meant to be about. It isn't want it was formed for, however
It doesn't protect anyone from criminial liability in the case of negligence or criminal activity
We are literally talking directly about a case where it is doing exactly that and my comment mentioned two of the workarounds that use companies exactly to avoid criminal liability and responsibility for negligence.
1) use dissipated decision making so that no one person can be shown, beyond the standard of reasonable doubt required for prosecution, to have had enough knowledge to be sure that what they were doing was criminal, ev
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The right wing / "personal responsibility" solution would be to make the owners responsible for the actions they command.
Certainty not. At least not in this country. The right wing doesn't believe in responsibility for itself or its donors.
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There's no speculation that increases CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere lead to the more heat being trapped. We've known that since the late 19th century.
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Oh, should corporations be forced to report the increase in costs to consumers of collective bargaining? How about reporting increase in costs when their CEO gets an INCREASE of $5m/yr, AND a bonus of $20M?
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UK public companies absolutely are obligated to report on leadership compensation. There is also a "statutory requirement for UK listed companies with more than 250 employees to disclose annually the ratio of their CEO’s pay to the median, lower quartile and upper quartile pay of their UK employees."
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That's cool, I'm surprised that language has survived the last couple of governments they've had.
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If you own Exxon-mobil stock longer than the term of one board election, you have adopted their or endorsed their corporate position on climate change,
Look at the funds in your 401k, do you even KNOW if you own Exxon shares, or a portion of an Exxon share, as part of those funds? I have no clue and trying to wade through the labyrinthine babble in the funds' documents is an exercise in frustration. I specifically asked our financial advisor to not buy any funds managed by Black Rock, about a year later he apologized saying that one of the funds owned shares in some other fund that was partly made up of Black Rock holdings. For a lot of people they don'
Re: Corporate free speech is bollocks (Score:3)
I agree. But this also isn't a free speech issue. Just because they disagree doesn't make it a free speech violation. As usual the conservative right has no clue what freedom of speech actually means.
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Corporate free speech is bollocks. Human rights are for human beings. Also, corporations do not have opinions, they cannot "disagree" with anything. You need a brain to have opinions. Only humans (well, animals) have brains.
Don't say that to a Republican or Libertarian. Corporations totes are people. They should have the same rights as people, plus they should get special rights because they're MORE than people.
Story dupe; also, part of a wider Exxon push (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot posted this already.
The effort by Exxon here is tied to their efforts to undermine all GHG reporting. They've allied with others such as EY and Santander and BGIP to try to create an alternative reporting structure that enables them to disclaim all responsibility for Scope 2 and 3 emissions, ie the actual use of the products they extract. They want to limit themselves to having to be responsible only for the carbon associated with the creation of the product. They are absolutely grotesque and I despise them for doing this.
https://sustainabilitymag.com/... [sustainabilitymag.com]
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The only thing that's ever worth saying to you is that you're an odious prick who writes reams of shite cosplaying as a reasoning human when you're anything but. I have long since given up reading what you spew as I know it's a complete waste of time. You'll happily see the planet become uninhabitable for your own disgusting reasons and I think it's despicable behaviour
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Don't be so wishy-washy, tell us what you REALLY think! :-)
There seem to be a large percentage of Liber tard ians among the 7- and 8-digit UIDs, aren't there?
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I know, but these people have done so much damage. I find it unforgivable!
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It would be great if Exxon were to refuse to sell California's government fuel, along with the rest of the Big Oil cartel. It would allow smaller companies a chance to actually compete, which is impossible now. California's the richest state in the country, if anyone can afford to help boost competition they can.
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And, yet, you also use their products daily but want to have no personal responsibility for that.
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To some extent we all do, and we are all human and all hypocrites. But, as the sages said " ."
We can, as a species, choose to kick ourselves in the balls *one less time* today than we did yesterday, and one less time than that tomorrow. We don't *have to* kick ourselves in the balls a thousand times a day, and doing it slightly less is still better, even if it's not as good as stopping entirely overnight.
That's why I drive an EV, use active and public transport a lot, turn lights off, use a green energy sup
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Stupid slashdot not supporting non-English scripts. Here's the quote in English instead: "It is not your duty to finish the work; but neither are you at liberty to neglect it"
Weird argument (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the laws they're complaining about requires them to have 3rd party insurance because of previous situations where they, specifically, broke laws and then attempted to avoid paying court ordered compensation.
No idea how that's supposed to be a free speech violation, unless they're basically saying that the government shouldn't be able to compel people to have 3rd party insurance when they drive a car...
They're kind of arguing that the laws hurt their feelings by attributing to them actions that they have performed.
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fuck em
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Bollocks... They're being asked to be open about their activities.
Re:While I don't like ExxonMobil... (Score:5, Insightful)
Inconvenient Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
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You'd have a point if they're supposed to report something that's not true or a misrepresentation. So is that the case here?
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Funny you should mention that. https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
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Because they were always so truthful when it came to leaded gasoline. /s
CANP (Score:2)
Corporations. Are. Not. People! They don't have the same rights as an individual, and the Founders never intended them to.
Screw the bribed SCROTUS [theguardian.com] and magic-undie Mitt. [uncyclopedia.co]
No rights violated (Score:5, Insightful)
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When Shrub was governator of Texas he changed the rules about reporting of chemical releases from mandatory to voluntary. He then proceeded to take credit for a 30% reduction in reported chemical spills, dressing it up as if his mAdministration had made the state safer for its citizens because there were now fewer spills.
Their what? (Score:2)
Calif is asking for data not fealty (Score:2)
It should just disclose the data and put a disclaimer on how it disagree at the end of the report
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It should just disclose the data and put a disclaimer on how it disagree at the end of the report
This is a court case on compelled speech, do you really believe they could get away with including such a disclaimer in any report they are compelled to produce?
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They're Exxon, of course they would. If California complained they'd just have their lawyers hold it up in court for a decade or two.
"Help help" (Score:2)
Overturn Citizens United (Score:3)
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Let's pass new laws in order to look for reasons to extract more money from gas companies as they're closing refineries and otherwise ceasing operations in the state! Just like Hawaii and the insurance industry, I eagerly await the time when companies realize they can't afford to do business in certain locales and decide to leave.
It's a case of being careful what you wish for. If the oil and gas companies leave California and Hawaii then that's what the respective state governments want but then that also means no more fuel for backup generators, emergency service vehicles, ships, aircraft, heating, cooking, and so much else.
The claim is that with wind, solar, and storage states like California and Hawaii can keep the lights on. Right now most of the energy storage in these states is tanks of fossil fuels. Fuel is stored energy.
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Are you of the opinion that if there's no refineries in a state that they won't have access to fuel? It doesn't work that way. You say a lot of absurd things, but this is outright stupid.
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Are you of the opinion that if there's no refineries in a state that they won't have access to fuel? It doesn't work that way. You say a lot of absurd things, but this is outright stupid.
This article should show that this isn't so absurd:
https://sacobserver.com/2025/0... [sacobserver.com]
I'll make an attempt to summarize the issues as I know that's a long article and still might not cover everything. California made itself something of a fuel island by having both a requirement for a unique blend of gasoline and not allowing for pipelines from other states to bring in either crude or refined fuels. Maybe there's some interstate pipelines but it's not enough to maintain supply from neighboring states withou
Corporations are people too :o (Score:2)
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The case that is claimed as precedent for 'corporate personhood', Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway, actually came to no such conclusion. It was gratuitously inserted into the headnotes summary by the Court's 'Reporter of Decisions', himself the former president of a railway.
In the state with Prop 65? (Score:2)
You're really going to waste your and taxpayers' dollars to challenge a law like this in the state that requires just about everything to have a Prop 65 [wikipedia.org] warning on it? Like, it's a long, running joke that people wear T-shirts with the Prop 65 warning on them because it's so prominent. You think you've got a fighting chance against this law in that state when so many products get a Prop 65 warning that don't really merit it?!
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This is, in fact, Exxon's deadly serious and completely vile attempt at a SovCit rationale, only with actual lawyers rather than gibbering fuckwits from the internet wittering on about the right to travel
did they also sue about quarterly reporting? (Score:2)
GAAP vs. non-GAAP, just report both (Score:2)
This is not about free speech at all. After all, all corporations already report quarterly using GAAP. That required reporting based on some pre-defined standard that the corporations might disagree with in no way precludes corporations from additionally reporting in a non-GAAP manner. In fact, almost all corporations report both GAAP and non-GAAP numbers at the same time.