On Wednesday (July 11), an array of groups will be protesting the policies of ExxonMobil. Many are calling for a boycott of the oil giant. The following activists and policy analysts are available for interviews:
CHRIS DORAN
Doran is campaigns director for PressurePoint, an organization launching its first major campaign directed at ExxonMobil on Wednesday. Doran said today: “ExxonMobil might be the richest corporation in the world, but morally it is bankrupt. The U.S. government’s climate change policy is the ExxonMobil policy. What sort of democracy do we have when one company can buy off our political process for its own gains? We’re turning up the heat on ExxonMobil and George W. Bush to take real action on climate change and corporate influence.”
More Information
CARWIL JAMES
Oil Campaign coordinator for Project Underground, James said today: “ExxonMobil often leads the charge in the oil industry’s effort to lower environmental protections and to open new ecosystems and homelands to oil drilling, and leads in breaking even those lowered environmental standards. In 1997, CEO Lee Raymond blatantly warned developing countries to lower environmental standards or risk losing foreign investment. From the half-million people affected by a 1998 Mobil oil spill in Nigeria to the billion dollars Mobil gave Russian and Kazakh partners for transactions with no apparent business purpose in 1999, the company consistently fails to be accountable to the communities its destructive operations affect.”
More Information
ROSS GELBSPAN
Author of The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-Up, The Prescription,Gelbspan said today: “ExxonMobil’s funding of the most vocal ‘greenhouse skeptics’ goes far beyond normal public relations spin, given the robust nature of the science and the unavoidable evidence of what is happening to the climate.”
More Information
STEVE KRETZMANN
Policy analyst with the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, Kretzmann said today: “Whether you’re talking about global warming or human rights violations, ExxonMobil is at the top of the list of offenders. There has just been a suit filed against it for collaboration in ongoing human rights violations, including murders, in Indonesia. It is cooperating with the repressive regime in Chad. ExxonMobil should suspend operations in these areas immediately.”
More Information
ALEX TAPIA
Tapia is climate coordinator for Campaign ExxonMobil, a coalition of environmental and religious shareholders in ExxonMobil. He said today: “There will be over 100 protest actions tomorrow. The company should take responsibility for its role in global warming and invest in renewable energy.”
More Information
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
