New York: House Republicans are renewing a legal fight with New York and Massachusetts over the states’ probes into whether ExxonMobil Corp misled investors about the potential impact of climate change.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and her New York counterpart, Eric Schneiderman, were subpoenaed Thursday by the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Both attorneys general said they’d ignore the demands, which seek detailed information about the probes. "Our office does not intend to comply or yield to further harassment," Chloe Gotsis, Healey’s spokeswoman, said in a statement. She urged the committee’s chairman, Texas Republican Lamar Smith, to "find something more productive to do."
The two attorneys general refused last year to comply with an earlier set of subpoenas, which expired with the last Congress. Since then, the dynamics of the dispute have shifted dramatically, with Donald Trump succeeding Barack Obama as president, and former Exxon Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson becoming the country’s top diplomat. "With Exxon’s former CEO -- a key figure in Attorney General Schneiderman’s fraud investigation -- now serving as President Trump’s Secretary of State, we’re not surprised that Exxon’s lobbyists were able to buy another flimsy House subpoena," Amy Spitalnick, press secretary to Schneiderman, said in a statement.
Healey and Schneiderman are investigating whether Irving, Texas-based Exxon discovered decades ago that human behavior is causing a rise in global temperatures, and then lied for years to investors and the public about the potential impact on the company’s finances. They also seek to determine if Exxon’s untapped reserves of oil and natural gas were valued properly in financial filings in light of recent drops in prices.
Smith and other Republicans argue the probes were started in "bad faith" because the attorneys general had reached their conclusions before the investigations started.
