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THE POLITICAL SCENE

ocratic Part)', but it has struggled to do so, in krge part because of its own rigid internal culture.

xxonMobil was created by a hostile act of the United States governThe power of ExxonMobil. ment. In 1911, the Supreme Court ordered the dismemberment of the StanBY 5TEVE COLL dard Oil monopoly, founded by John D, Rockefeller. Some of its executives, judgn late February, President Obaimi pro- termined by factors such as turmoil in ing by the skepticism they express toward posed, not for the first time, that Con- the Middle East and Chinese consump- Washington, seem not to have got over gress end four billion dollars' worth of tion rates. But, by calling for more drill- the initial breakup. ExxonMobil's chairsubsidies for oil and gas companies. They ing, Obama can say that he is taking ac- man and chief executive, Rex Tillerson, can either -stand up for the oil companies, tion. By lambasting the oil companies, who is active in the Boy Scouts of Ameror they can stand up for die American he can suggest that he is not at fault. ica, told the magazine Scouting recently people," the President declared during The contest between die Democrats that his favorite bookis "Atlas Shrugged," one ofliis weekly radio addresses notlong and Big Oil this .year will be reciprocal, Ayn Rarixf s dystopian 1957 novel, a touchafterward. I ie seemed to be signalling ami Big Oil will be led by ExxonMobil, stone for libertarians. The company has a that he will be running for President this by for the largest and most profitable oil culture of secrecywith nondisclosure year, as he did fouryears ago, in open op- corporation headquartered in the United agreements and internal security that can position to the American oil industry: .States. In recent election cycles, the cor- make it seem like an intelligence agency. "These are the same oil companies that poration has directed more of its politicai- Company executives deflect press coverhave teen making record profits off die action-comruittee spending to Republi- age; they sometimes withhold cooperamoney you spend at the pump.. . . It's cans than any other oi the largest American tion from congressional investigators, if outrageous. It's inexcusable." public corporations. About ninety per the letter of die law allows; and when they The President's policies toward the oil cent of ExxonMobil's PAC giving during speak in public, they typically read out industry are not easy to categorize. He has the 2010 election cycle went to Republi- sanitized, carefully edited speeches, or backed oil and natural-gas alternatives cans. An even higher percentage has gone PowerPoint slides. such as solar power and wind power, and to them dlis year, according to databases On March 23, 1989, the Exxon Valalso the development of electric cars. Yet maintained by the Center for Responsive dez, an oil tanker, ran aground on a reef he has encouraged new domestic oil pro- Politics. Among the other krge share- in Alaska's Prince William Sound. The duction as well. "We arc drilling more," .he holder-owned corporations that maintain captain had been drinking, and he left the declared in Oklahoma last month, stand- active PACs, Walmart, General Electric, bridge shortly before midnight, in violaing before a huge stack of copper pipeline Bank of America, and Ford gave about tion of company policies. I tfe crew memsegments. "Anyone who says that we're half or more of their contributions to bers became confused, attempted to turn somehow suppressing domestic oil pro- Democrats during die 2010 cycle. Even the ship, and lost track of their position duction isn't paying attention," Dow Chemical, historically wary of altogether. At a few minutes past twelve, The President's actionsattacking Democratic politicians, because of envi- there was a terrible sound. "Vessel oil-company profits while proposing ronmental and regulatory issues, directed aground. We're fucked," die chief mate more oil drillingcan be best under- about half of its PAC contributions to called out. stood as political responses to rising gas- Democrats in the kst cycle. Chevron and The Valdez dumped more than two oline prices. The average price of a gal- ConocoPhillips, the second- and hundred thousand barrels of oil into the lon has risen by more than fifteen per third-Largest American oil companies, wafer. Soon, the pleading black eyes of cent since January, arid congressional gave to Democrats at twice the rate of oil-soaked sea otters became tile symbols of a broad wildlife massacre. The Valdez Republicans have repeatedly attacked ExxonMobil. die President for not doing enough to The evolution of the country's biggest disaster became a catalyst for reforms at keep prices down. Between 2010 and and most powerful oil company into a ExxonMobil that, still influence every as2011, over-all spending on gasoline in finance arm of the Republican Party is a pect of its operations, including its apthe United States rose by twenty-five per story of both energy economics and style. proach to politics add lobbying. Almost cent; the percentage of household in- ExxonMobil describes itself as a non- since its founding, the company lias emcome that Americans spend on gas has ideological corporation, yet it has devel- phasized procedure and orthodoxy. But tripled since the late nineteen-nineties. oped an algorithmic formula for political after the wreck Exxon's executives placed The President lias acknowledged that spending and lobbying that has rein- extraordinary emphasis on uniform, there is no way that the expansion of forced its alignment with Republican scientific, idiot-proof, automated systems drilling can affect gasoline prices anytime candidates in ways that 1 Jemocrats could of safety, management, finance, and busisoonit takes a long time to add to the hardly see as anything but antagonistic. ness analysis. Some of the reforms made the comsupply, and, in any event, gas prices are Over the past six years, the company has tied to the global oil price, which is de- tried to adapt to the revival of the Dem- pany resemble a cult. ExxonMobil de-

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partnients worldwide organized regular safety meetings and competitions. Workers were awarded prizes for insuring that office clerks did not leave file drawers open, lest someone bump into them. Failing to turn oft a coffee pot might draw a written reprimand. Cars had to be backed into parking spaces, so that in case of an emergency the driver could sec clearly while speeding away. Group safety confessionals covered conduct beyond the workplace and included discussions of the correct use of a ladder while cleaning gutters at home and the danger of getting too much sun on a beach vacation. Employees Stood op and shared stories of "nearmisses" with personal accidents, as in a twelve-step recovery program. One manager who had been at the company for twenty-eight years recalled listening to a colleague confess dial while cutting the grass in his yard he had mishandled his lawmnower, causing an object to fly out of it and strike his leg. 'Hie atinosphere'within ExxonMobil's offices is one of studied formality; the corporate aesthetic suggests a Four Seasons hotel, without many guests. At industry meetings, the ExxonMobil participants can usually lie identified easily: die women in charcoal pants suits and the men in dark suits mid white, shirts, with short and proper haircuts. "They encouraged you to get married," a former employee recalled. Such values were "not just a lot of lip service," another longtime executive said. "J. D. Rockefeller went to church every Sunday and his employees better by God go to church on Sunday or they were not good employees." According to interviews with current and former ExxonMobil managers and lobbyists, the corporation's political spending largely reflects the free-market outlook of its senior executives; virtually all ot diem joined die company out of college or graduate school and stayed on for life. ExxonMobil has engineered its free-market creed into a ranking and evaluation process, tlic "key vote system," for directing pofaical-accion-eornrnittee contributions. The corporation's public-affairs analysts identify important votes in Congress that affect ExxonMobil's business interests; politicians are then rated on the basis of these votes. The corporation's heavy spending on Republicans is the 5 outcome of objective analysis, an execu$ tive involved in political strategy said.

Lee Raymond, the former C.E, O., once said, "We see governments come and go, * "We are a business-oriented PAC," he told me. "Now, when you apply that litmus, our PAC is righdy criticizedthat we tend to give more money to Republicans than to Democratsbut it is a result of the approach we take, and not a desired result" Exxon's annual revenues, of more than four hundred billion dollars, are about the same as the gross domestic product of Norway. Since theninetem-ftft'tes, Exxon has always been in the top five on the annual Fortune 500 list. (In 1999, Exxon merged with Mobil, reuniting; two Standard Oil descendants and forming the largest non-state-owned oil corporation in the world.) During the past decade, as global oil prices have risen, ExxonMobil's profits have smashed records. It functions as a corporate state within the American stateconstructing its own foreign, economic, and human-rights policiesand its executives are self-conscious about their sovereignty. Its business modeldrilling holes in the ground all over the world and maintaining oil and gas wells profitably for up to forty years at a stretchmeans that the political and economic time horizons for its corporate strategies extend much farther than those of almost any government Lee Raymond, Tillerson's predecessor, once remarked, "We see governments come and go." xxonMobil's headquarters arc in Irving, Texas, on a placid campus near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. Its Washington office is in a pink graniteand-ooncrete office building on K Street A turret, topped by an American flag, distinguishes the building from the bland, conforming architecture of the capital's
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lobbying corridor. Inside ExxonMobil's suite, the furniture is dark cherry. Oil paintings of American landscapes line the walls; antique Mobil oilcans and signs for Esso decorate the shelves of conference rooms. In 2005, Dan Nelson, a six-foot-eight former Marine officer who served in Vietnam, took charge of the Washington office. ExxonMobil has long relied mainly on career employees, not outside lobbyists. Last year, of die thirteen million dollars it disclosed that it spent on lobbying in Washington, only about twenty per cent went to outside consultants or influence-peddling firms. "1 think we did it in-house so we could get it done right," Joseph A. Gillan, who worked on environmental issues in the ExxonMobil office early in the .Bush Administration, said. During the Bush years, the corporation's Washington strategists informally divided the capital's officeholders into four tiers, in descending order of sympathy for ExxonMobil's agenda. There were those who represented the oil patch senators and congressmen, from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Wyoming. This group included, after 2000, President George. W. Bush and Vke-President Dick Cheney. The second tier consisted of free-market Republicans who didn't particularly understand the oil-and-gas industry but who gener-

ally supported ExxonMobil's positions. contains a summary of ExxonMobil's The third tier consisted of Democrats or lobbying position, which the corporaliberal Republicans who regularly voted tion's public-affairs teams support worldagainst ExxonMobil's interests but who wide, often using common language and were open to discussion and might be PowerPoint slides. The notebook also persuaded to vote the industry's way. provides a guide for judging American From 2001 to 2009, when Hillary Clin- politicians. ton served in the Senate, she fell into During both the Bush and the Obama this category. Tier four was "the enemy," Administrations, ExxonMobil has conas some of the military veterans in the centrated its efforts in Washington on K Street office occasionally put it. These prevcn ring certain tax and regulator}' bills were Democrats and environmental ac- Jroiii being enacted, such as Obama's tivists who, ExxonMobil's executives proposal, this winter, to strip away indusbelieved, wanted to disenfranchise the try tax advantages. The corporation has corporation and use. its unpopularity invested mainly in a blocking strategy, foto galvanize liberal constituents and cussing its PAC donations on Republicans flinderssenators such as Charles Schu- who can try to assure, that no damaging mer, of New York, and Dick Durbin, of laws go through. "Whoever s in. power Illinois. in the House has almost dictatorial Kenneth P. Cohen, ExxonMobil's power," a Washington consultant who vice-president for public and government lias worked on oil-industry Issues says. "If affairs, has overseen the corporation's you control what's going on in die House, political-action committee for more than you have huge influence over the final" a decade. Cohen, who has worked at legislation, as well as over the budgets and ExxonMobil since 1.977, is a mild-looking spending mandates that shape regulation. man of modest height with a thick heat! In tlie past decade, the leading recipiof graying hair. His operating manual for ent of ExxonMobil PAC contributions political strategy is a dark binder that is has been Representative Joe Barton, a kept on a shelf in his second-floor office Republican from Texas, who has held seat the Irving headquarters. The first page nior positions on the House .Energy and carries the title "Public Policy Issues.'" A Commerce Committee, where most leglist of about two dozen subjects follows, islation affecting the oil industry origifrom climate change to government sub- nates, Anne Northup, a former Republisidies for gasoline alternatives such as etbr can congresswoman from Kentucky, who and. For each policy area, the notebook now serves on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, received the secondlargest amount of campaign money. ExxonMobil's ten leading campaigncontribution recipients in that decade were all House Republicans, according to research done by the journalist Ann Ollanlon. ExxonMobil's political-action committee has not made contributions to recent Presidential campaigns, but its top executives have made it abundantly clear that they prefer Republicans in the White 1 louse. After President Bush won reelection, the company donated a quarter of a million dollars to help fund the celebrations for his second inaugural e need a conversation wi th Democrats," Dan Nelson told his colleagues in the ExxonMobil office on K Street as the 2006 election neared. The company's Washington analysts could see that the Democrats were gaming momentum, and the corporation's unpopu-

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larity created a risk that Congress might about twenty-five thousand dollars a enact a windfall tax or costly climate reg- month from ExxonMobil.) Dan Nelson ulation. Leading Democratic election also brought on Louis Finkel, who had strategists were well aware of ExxonMo- worked for years for a Democratic conbil's investments in the Republican Party, gressman from Tennessee, Bart Gordon, and they openly criticized the corporation. Still, in the K Street office. Democrats' "There is no question there is a new phase were seen at times as a mysterious species of scrutiny for Exxon," Schumer, who was requiring specialized anthropological then chairing the Democratic Party's Sen- insights. ate Campaign Committee, said. Normally, one of the easiest ways to n November 7, 2006, the Demoopen a conversation with a member of cratic Party took control of the Congress is to donate to his or her reelec- House. A few weeks later, Ken Cohen tion committee. The problem was that flew to Washington. On a chilly afterExxonMobil made almost all of its con- noon in early December, he travelled west tribution decisions on the mathematical on Interstate 66 to Warrenton, Virginia, analysis of the key vote system. Neither in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. MounObama (when he was in the Senate, after tains, lie turned in to the secluded 2004) nor other leadi ng Democrats head- grounds of the Airlie Center, a retreat faing for leadership positions in Congress cility for government and business leador considering a Presidential run in 2008 ers. Cohen had scheduled a private, scored very well. During die Bush Ad- three-day Opinion Leader Dialogue beministration's second term, not a single tween ExxonMobil executives and enviDemocrat in Congress scored above fifty ronmental and corporate-responsibility percent In the view of the system's infer- activists, with whom he planned to test nal critics, it failed to distinguish ade- out some of ExxonMobil's strategies for quately between truly key votes and rou- dealing with an ascendant Democratic tine party-line votes, and this skewed the majority. numbers against Democrats. ExxonMoThe ExxonMobil executives had inbil lobbyists maintained strong ties with vited fourteen guests, including two sesome Democrats from industrial states, nior energy-policy analysts from the like the Michigan congressman John Brookings Institution, a human-rights Dingcll, and with other Part}' members activist at Freedom House, climate-polfrom Southern or conservative Western icy specialists, a busi ness-ethics professor, states who voted like Republicans on en- and a specialist, in socially responsible inergy and tax issues. But the corporation's vesting. During the cocktail hour, one of Washington office was not well prepared die guests, who worked for an environfor a f louse of Representatives ruled by mental nonprofit, mentioned to Cohen Nancy Pelosi or influenced by the envi- the brutal hours she spent at her job. "He ronmentalist 1 leruy Waxman, both from was shocked," she recalled. He seemed to think tliat "people who worked in enviCalifornia. ExxonMobil's most influential Dem- ronmental groups in Washington had ocrat was Theresa Fariello, who had cushy lives." joined the corporation from the Clinton Another participant recalled thanking Administration's Department of Energy, of her hosts, These were clearly thoughtin 2001. According to Alan Jeffers, an ful, smart, articulate peoplethey just ExxonMobil spokesman, she was valu- lived in a totally different world than we able because of "her skills and experience live in." ExxonMobil had recently awarded gained from leading ExxonMobil's global its retiring chief executive, Lee Raymond, issues management process." A commit- a compensation package worth four hunted supporter of Hillary Clinton, she dred million dollars. At the retreat, in an helped arrange a few consultancies and effort to suggest that die package was not retainer contracts with lobbyists in Wash- as rich as that number might suggest, ington who were closely connected, to some of the ExxonMobil executives tried Democrats, One such lobbyist was David to explain the differences between pension Leiter, 'who had worked as die chief of benefits, stock options, and restricted staff for Senator John Kerry during the stock. "You know you can't win on that nineties. (Starting in 2006, Letter's lobby- message, right?" the participant says she ing firm, ML Strategies, has received remembers thinking as she listened. 'You're

talking to people who can't even take tlie Acela train to New York" Hie next morning, the group assem bled in a conference room around tables arranged in a hollow square. The agenda included two "dialogue sessions" on climate change arid a third on corporate transparency and human rights. Cohen shared some of his internal surreys about ExxonMobil's reputation. In one, fortyseven per cent approved of its over-all corporate citizenship, bvit only twentyfour per cent approved of its environmental stewardship. The corporations notoriously bad reputation on climate issues was almost certainly a factor in its lagging environmental marks.. In the aineteen-nineties and through the first Bush term, ExxonMobil funded free-market research and communications groups that attacked the emerging science documenting global warming. The Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, and other environmental and public advocacy groups exposed the corpotatkwi's investments in climate-change skeptics and accused executives of adapting science-smearing strategies similar to those employed by the tobacco industry, which long tried to downplay the dangers of smoking. Cohen had been involved .in some of the controversial funding decisions, but after Tillerson became chairman, early in 2006, ExxonMobil reviewed and eventually halted its support for the more polarizing groups. It also experimented with new language and lobbying positions about the causes of, and risks posed by, global warming. During the dialogue, according to Leslie H. Lowe, one of die participants, who was at that time the director of the erjerg>'-and-enwonmcnt program at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 'They were really dancing around the question of certainty" about the risks of global warming and the evidence that man-made activity such as oil and gas use contributed. The group talked about setting a new tax on gasoline as a way to contain greenhouse-gas emissions. "If you tax gasoline, people will be hurt," Cohen said. He argued that, even if the tax's proceeds were rebated to needy drivers, they would be forced to take the rebates and go out and buy gas with them. The participants on both sides were
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trying, "to be ever so polite," Lowe recalled. That night at dinner, she found herself sittingwith an ExxonMobil executive. In what she hoped was an unthreatening tone, she asked, referring to climate policy, "Look, you're a sciencebased organization. How can. you not accept the science that is basically confirmed by most mainstream thinkers?" In response, the executive talked about the inherent uncertainties in weather modelling and forecasting. Lowe listened, and then asked, "What are yon going to say to your grandkids when they say, 'Grandpa, why did you fuck up die planet?'?" The executive, Lowe recalls, just chuckled good-naturedly.

Jeremy boos returns as the ruthless patriarch Pope Alexander VI in the explosive rie1-'.' season of "The Borgias." The invtotebS bonds of blood wil! be tested like never before as the house notoriously united against the world becomes divided against itself. Premiering Sunday, April 8, at 10 P,M, CST/PT), only on

not going to give up those profits easily." The highest average retail price for a gallon of gasoline in American history just over four dollarswas recorded in July, 2008- Obama seized upon ExxonMobil's unprecedented profits at the time, about ten billion dollars per quarter. When McCain announced a plan to reform corporate taxes, Obama's researchers figured out how much of the benefits would go to ExxonMobil. "At a time when we're fighting two wars, when millions of Americans can't afford their medical bills or their tuition bills, when we're paying more than, four dollars a gallon for gas, the man who rails against government spending wants to spend $1.2 billion on a tax break for ExxonMobil," Obama declared. "That f all the candidates who started isn't just irresponsible. It's outrageous!" running for President in 2007, That summer, the Bush Administranone spoke more often or more point- tion and the McCain campaign studied edly about .ExxonMobi] than Barack polls showing that many Americans faObama. He criticized the corporation's vored new ofishote oil drilling as a stratprofits and contrasted its wealth with the egy to reduce high gasoline prices. The struggles of middle-class families. His White House and McCain's strategists campaign sought to link Senator John coordinated announcements to promote McCain to the pro-oil policies of Vice- .more domestic exploration in ocean, waPresident Cheney, a former chief execu- ters; this inspired chants of "Drill, baby, tive of the oil-services corporation Hal- drill!" at Republican campaign rallies. liburton. By the summer of 2008, Obama promptly linked McCain's offsixty-two per cent of Americans sur- shore-drilling plan to ExxonMobil's veyed had an unfavorable view of profits and denounced it as merely an Cheney. "President Bush, he had an en- "oil-company wish list." ergy policy," Obama declared. "He More than his profit-bashing, howturned to Dick Cheney and he said, ever, Obama's climate and alternative'Cheney, yp take care of this.',., Mc- energy policies on the campaign trail got Cain has taken a page, out of the Cheney the attention of ExxonMobil's publicplaybook," afiairs executives and the K Street lobbyOft the campaign trail, Obama's views ists. Obat iia pledged to impose a price on about energy and climate policy were sub- carbon-based fuels such as gasoline, and tle. I Ic studied the issues and learned the to make large new investments in wind nuances of automobile mileage standards, power and solar power. "We must end international oil markets, and dean-coal the age of oil,*' Obama declared. By the technologies, and how different forms of fall, the ExxonMobil executive involved energy production contribute to global in political strategy recalled, the corporawarming. But his strategists knew that to tion had been scolded by name so many many independent voters and disillu- times that "we felt like a candidate," He sioned Republicans the idea of an Exxon- added, "We clearly knew that we were Mobil-Cheney complex represented all not dcctablc," that had gone wrong in the Bush years: die Iraq war and the rise in American ecoxxonMobil's initial response to Obama's ascendancy was to engage nomic insecurity. And so Obama salted his campaign speeches with ExxonMobil with Democrats and search for common references even when they were gratuitous. ground on climate policy. Shordy before "It's not going to be easy to have a sensible Election Day, Ken Cohen organized a energy polity in this country," he said at meeting in Connecticut with about a one primary debate. "ExxonMobil made hundred of ExxonMobil's public-affairs eleven billion dollars last quarter. They're and media-relations specialists. [ le invited

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DETERMINATION Cabbagethe first word put. down with his new pen, a trophy pen, like a trophy wife, not cheap, absurd to use a ballpoint pen for a task like this, a challenge, for which he'd also bought a new, but ancient, rolltop desk recently restored, with matching chair, also not cheap, and for which he'd renovated the attic room with pine-panelled walls, bookshelves, and good light for his new office or weekend office, a. place planned for many years, even before college, back in high school in fact, a resolve rare in his lite, but about which he'd dreamed in free moments at his office, and which kept Mm sane during those tedious years of doing the faxes of strangers, but now at last begun, excitingly begun, as he leaned forward with pen raised to put down on paper the first word of his first novel. Stephen 'Do/ym

Bennett Freeman, a former Clinton Adroinistrarion official who had worked as a consultant on corporate-responsibility issues. Freeman had periodically addressed ExxonMobil's political team over the years, offering the perspective of a respectful Democratic critic. Freeman praised the ExxonMobil managers for progress that he felt they had made in protecting human rights in violence-prone areas overseas where the company drilled for oil, such as Nigeria, and also for working to combat corruption in oil-producing countries. Then he turned to climate change. "Look," he said. 'You were in the late nineteenth century. With TilJerson, you've come a long way, but you're still in die Sate twentieth century. This is the twenty-first century, and on climate change you need to change your tone and change your substance."

He urged ExxonMobil to support legislation designed to control greenhousegas emissions, which would be introduced in Congress in 2009, no matter who was elected. "You need to get behind" some legislative approach aimed at "meeting carbon-reduction goals," he said. "On alternative energywhatever technological capability you have, whatever is most viable, you have to get on it and do it. This is a carbon-constrained future you're looking at." Cohen and Other executives took notes.

ound the time of Obama's Inaugurafion,TilIersoa replaced Dan Nelson, the retired marine, with Theresa Fariello, the former Clinton Administration official, as head of the Washington office. ExxonMobil bought billboard space in the Washington Nationals' new baseball stadium, on the Anacostia

River, and in the nearby metro, and put up ads depicting ethnically diverse ExxonMobil scientists and engineers surrounded by photographs of molecules and other visual images associated with scientific research. As the deep recession of 2009 descended, ExxonMobil also began to emphasize publicly the oil industry's role in job creation. Ken Cohen told ExxonMobil's Management Committee that the strategy was woddng. In ExxonMobil's own public-opinion polling, its approval ratings soared during 2009, from about thirty per cent the year before to about fifty per cent The polls showed that the reputations of all thebig oil companiesExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and Shellwere starting to recover. Some of the ira proved ratings surely derived from retell gasoline prices, which plunged during 2009, because of the shrinking economy, but die advertising also seemed to be having an impact. ExxonMobil's executives concluded that Democrats in Obarna's Washington "don't want B.S. They don't want greenwashing. . . . We are prepared to disagree and hopefully we can think about it in a way diat's mutually respectful." But ExxonMobil was constrained by the. fact that most of its Democratic Party connections were tied to the failed Presidential campaign of"Hillary Clinton. Its principal Democratic lobbyist, David Leitcr, was married to Tamera Luzzatto, who had been Hillary Clinton's Senate chief of staff during the campaign. The Clinton universe was in gcncn.il more corporatefriendly and closer to Fortune 500 executive suites than die Obama campaign. ExxonMobil's executives said that die)' had fe.lt as welcome in the CE n ton White House as they did later in the Bush White House. Obama's campaign had received support from Hollywood and Wall Street, and he attracted allies at large technology companies such as Google, but he did not have broad connections to the largest industrial corporations. After Obama named Clinton his Secretary of State, ExxonMobil decided to invest in the Clinton Global Initiative, an enterprise conceived by Bill Clinton that channels corporate donations to humanitarian causes in the world's poorest countries. ExxonMobil owns oil fields and produces oil in a number of countries in Africa, and it has been involved in
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charitable and development work there. money we're spending," Tillerson said. Yet even die relationship with die Clin- "So it's not my money to tithe. It's not die ton organization proved awkward at times. corporations. It's our shareholders'." On the morning of September 23, xxonMobil's Initial efforts to reach 2009, .Rex Tillerson arrived at the Sheraton on Seventh Avenue in New York, out to the Obama Administration to participate in a plenary session at die gave way, during 2009 and 2010, to a Global initiative's annual conference. succession of legislative and policy batThe session was entitled "Investing in tles in which, the corporation and the Girls and Women." It. took place in a new President found themselves on opballroom decorated in purple and red, posite sides. Tillerson sought meetings with large television screens to help with Treasury and White House officials, the audience see celebrities like Matt to explain ExxonMobil's views on energy Damon and. Bono; delegates sat with markets, domestic drilling, climate legname tags dangling around their necks. islation, and the recession. On one occaDiane Sawyer came onstage to moder- sion, Tillerson joined a group of chief ate. Next to her were Edna Adan, the executives at dinner with Obama. In founder of a maternity hospital in So- general, however, wary Administration malUand; Melanne Verveer, the U.S. officials saw no reason to favor ExxonAmbassador-at-Large for Global Wom- Mobil with access. There was little basis en's Issues (and a neighbor of Dan Nel- for trust on either side. ExxonMobil lobson's); and Zainab Salbi, an Iraqi-born bying sessions with Ghana's team at the activist who had started a network called Treasury Department or the .DepartWomen for Women International. Also ment of Energy could be stiff, with on the panel were Tfflerson and Lloyd Fariello and Other, lobbyists enunciating Blankfcin, the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs. ExxonMobil's advocacy positions, someThe atmosphere suggested the laying on times just by reading from notes and preof liberal hands to cleanse tvvo sinfiil mul- pared materials. During the first three tinational corporations. years of Obama's Presidency, the corpoTillerson, who has a rich Teas accent, ration spent more than fifty-two million talked about initiatives to support girls dollars on lobbying in Washington, about and women In some of the poor coun- fifty per cent more per year than during tries where the corporation extracted the Bush Presidency. 1 he most important challenge that oil. ExxonMobil, he said, was interested in exploring, on behalf of impov- ExxonMobil faced was the climate bill, known as "cap-and-trade," erished women: "What are which Obama and congresthe technologies.., that will sional Democrats introduced provide them capabilities to undertake their activities in a early in 2009. The House of more effective and efficient Representatives pissed a version of the law in June and way?" Sawyer, Adan, Verveer, moved It to the Senate, where the most difficult negotiations and Salbi. fell into an intense discussion of female genital, were expected. The proposed cutting. Adan said It 'was eslaw would have established a new regulatory system under sential to "educate die men which polluting corporations and the fathers to take a decicould buy and sell permits to sion and stand and not just emit greenhouse gases, under pass it off, and say This Is a woman's problem. 1 " Salbi leaned an over-all "cap" that would seek to reacross Tillerson to make another point; duce the rate of global warming, ExxonMobil denounced the cap-andhe shifted uncomfortably. He was not trade system as unwieldy and bureauasked to offer an opinion. Sawyer then asked him, "What is the cratic. It. did, however, announce that it responsibility of a multinational corpora- would support a straight "carbon tax," tion to make the world better through which would create incentives for reduccharitable activity? Is it a tithe often per tions in cod and oil use. The proposal was a major policy shift cent? 1 low much?" "Ultimately, this is our shareholders' for die corporation, which had come ro

it after years of isolated, deliberative policy analysis. But there was little support for the idea among Democrats. They knew that Republicansmany of whom had signed pledges never to raise taxeswouldn't go for it. And they had determined that cap-atid-trade was the climate-change policy they would try to pass. Exxon's support for a carbon tax would have been welcome in, say, the early nineties, when Al Gore was pushing the idea. But the debate had moved on. Tillerson's support for a carbon tax marked the first time that airy ExxonMobil chief executive had advocated responding to die threat of global warming by raising the cost of oil and gas production. But, because ExxonMobil ardently opposed Obama's cap-and-tradc bill from the start, It managed to leave the Impression, as a senior Obama adviser put it, that it sought to "follow a trick that was quite different from the other majorsbeing firmly fixed In the Tuck you, no apologies, oil-Is-here-to-stay mode." The story of how Obama's climate bill died in the Senate, during 2010, involves many politicians, industry interest groups, and corporations. Ultimately, it was probably hurt most by the high unemployment rate, which made moderate Democrats and Republicans fret more about imposing new costs on the economy. Throughout the lobbying scrum, ExxonMobil persisted with its lonely argument for a carbon tax. I ts lobbyists 1 eft behind in congressional offices PowerPoint presentations documenting a private Hart Research Associates poll, "Energy and Climate Change Policy," showing that Americans preferred Tillerson's straight carbon-tax idea to capand-trade, especially when the differences between the two approaches were explained. But Tillerson had tied the corporation's lobbyists to a proposal that was Irrelevant to die practical discussions then taking place on climate policy. ExxonMobil's strategy in Washington was vindicated during Obama's first term: not only did cap-and-tradc die but the windfall taxes on oil companies proposed by Obama during the campaign failed, too. When Republicans took back the Mouse in the 2010 midterm elections, ExxonMobil's lobbyists no longer had

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reason to fear that Obania or congressional Democrats could upend their industry with climate or tax laws. I of ExxonMobil's business strategies remain oriented toward the very long run. With little sign that climate legislation can be revived successfully, the roost important issue during the next Presidential term likely will be the regulation of hydraulic fracturing, or "tracking," drilling for unconventional gas trapped in shale rocks and other formations, an issue that will shape the corporation's business prospects in the United States for a generation or more. Obama and Mitt Romney, the most likely Republican nominee, disagree over oil-and-gas regulations, and this has reinforced ExxonMobil's alignment with the Republican Party. Exxon's interest in the matter increased substantially in 2010, when it bought America's leading unconventional-gas producer, XTO Energy. Obama and his advisers have announced support for expanded domestic production of natural gas, including from unconventional gas beds, but environmentalists have-raised concerns that fracking techniques might damage water supplies or cause other environmental problems, such as inducing earthquakes, particularly if regulation is left to the states, which often don't have sufficient expertise. The E.P.A. has been investigating the practice. ExxonMobil strongly argues that regulation is better left to states and local communities. Mitt Rorruiey, meanwhile, has pledged to deregulate the oil-and-gas industry-and to get the E.P.A. out of the industry's way. He has complained that Obama's approach has unnecessarily limited domestic oil and gas production. "1 want regulators to see businesses and enterprises of all kinds as their friends, and to encourage them, and move them, along," Romney said while campaigning in Mississippi. In recent weeks, Tillerson has been speaking out, too, against greater regulation. "You can be afraid of a lot of things that you don't \inderscind,* TJIctson told an industry conference in Houston in March. He pledged to bring forward "facts" and to encourage a "science-based discussion.",In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he expressed his impa-

either. Big oil companies make the vast majority of their profits by finding oil and gas, pumping it out, and selling it wholesale. ExxonMobil can neither control prices at the pump nor make high profits there. This year, Obama has been saying that, during his time in the White House, American oil imports have fallen illerson and Obama appear to share to their lowest level in years. The United at least one understanding about States reduced oil imports by a million energy policy and die 2012 barrels a day, or about ten campaign: they are both per cent, in 2011. "Last aware that the partisan and year, we relied less on formedia-amplified war over eign oil than in any of the where to place the blame last sixteen years," Obama for rising gasoline prices is said in his State of the largely a phony one. Union speech, in. January, Global oil prices, and This is in some respects a therefore gasoline prices, perverse boast; oil imhave been increasing this ports have dropped priyear for geopolitical reasons: marily because of the rccession and the weak for example, the economic sanctions imposed on Iran, recovery. However, rising accompanied by threats of war, which domestic production of unconventional have caused speculators to bet on a possi- oil in places such as North. Dakota, along ble oil-supply disruption. Obama may with energy-efficiency drives supported have spooked the oil markets by suggest- by the Administration, are also factors, ing that, if necessary, he might wage war and they could lead to a further decline on Iran to prevent that country from ac- in imports even as die economy picks up. quiring nuclear weapons. But Israel has 'Hie President has acknowledged that been the main source of such threats, and there is no cheap or quick way to change Obama has chided these engaged in "loose America's gasoli ne economy or to relieve talk" about war. Over all, short of trying to drivers from their vulnerability to price avoid war in the Middle East, there is not spikes. Producing and using alternative much that any President of the United transportation fuels on a large scale across States can do to determine the price of die United States, Obama has noted, is a gasoline. In theory, he could seek tempo- "problem that .may not be solved in one rary tax rebates for drives or attempt to year or one term or wen one decade." flood world oil markets by selling off die That happens to be ExxonMobil's country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, view as well. Earlier diis year, die corpowhich is intended to protect the American ration published an annual forecast of economy from oil-supply disruptions global energy demand, to the year 2040. caused by war or natural disaster. But Its latest analytical models, developed these would be temporary arid expensive wi th the same rigor as die key vote system, measures that would not alter die global take into account all of the electric-car factors that drive oil, prices, or the price dreams of the Obama Administration, as volatility exacerbated by waves of specula- well as the promotion of solar power and tive money flowing onto electronic oil-fu- wind power in the United States, Europe, tures exchanges. In late March, Patih and elsewhere. The models forecast that Bird, die chief economist of die Interna- worldwide gasoline consumption for use tional Energy Agency, an intergovern- in cars may well decline in the next three mental forum, warned that high oil decades. Truck, airplane, and ship fuel prices now posed a greater risk to the consumption, however, will increase by world economy than even Europe's sixty per cent, mainly in fast-growing sovereign-debt crisis. poor countries. Decades from now, oil, ExxonMobil and other large oil cor- gas, and coal, ExxonMobil's analysts preporations do not have much influence dicted, "will continue to be the most over the changing retail price of gasoline, widely used fuels." * tience -with tile layers of regulation liis company laces. ''There are a thousand ways you can be told 'no' in this country." In January, Tillerson and Ken Cohen gave twenty-five hundred dollars each, the maximum for individual contributions, to Romney's Presidential campaign.
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