14 Q18: In your Smoke and Fumes research, you mentioned about the American Petroleum Institute and other associations. What is the American Petroleum Institute and other associations, and which companies are or were members of these associations? A18: The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest trade group representing the US oil and gas industries. API claims a membership of more than 600 companies.21 API has been active in coordinating industry information sharing on a wide array of environmental issues, and since no later than 1958 has been actively involved in coordinating oil industry research into and public communications regarding carbon pollution, climate change, and climate relevant policy measures and debates, including active engagement in climate denial campaigns. API’s coordinated efforts on climate change began under its Smoke and Fumes Committee in 1951, and continued under the Air and Water Conservation Committee and other committees from 1960 onward. API’s full membership lists are not publicly disclosed. However, historic membership lists disclosed during unrelated litigation evidence the membership of individual Carbon Majors companies, their predecessors, subsidiaries or affiliates from 1949 through 1990. (Representative lists were submitted as documentary annexes to slides 26, 32 and 44 of my testimony of May 23rd.) These lists are discussed in further detail below. API is the most significant but not the only organization through which the oil industry coordinated information-sharing, research, communications and policy activities with respect to air pollution and climate change. The Western Oil and Gas Association (WOGA), founded in 1907, and later renamed the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) is the oldest oil industry association in the United States and the most active industry lobbying organization in the Western U.S. It is the industry organization under which the original Smoke & Fumes Committee was established in 1947, with the goal of combining industry-funded research with active public relations campaigns to promote public skepticism of air pollution regulations. WSPA remains active in efforts to obstruct climate policies, including through deceptive or misleading public relations campaigns. An internal WSPA document from 2014, uncovered by the Union of Concerned Scientists revealed how WSPA had used at least 16 fake grassroots organizations and campaigns to create the illusion of widespread public opposition to climate and energy measures in western states.22 ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhilips and Shell, among other Carbon Majors, have been active in WOGA and WSPA throughout their century long history, including in 2014. 21 https://www.api.org/membership Kathy Mulvey and Seth Shulman, Climate Deception Dossiers: Internal Fossil Fuel Industry Memos Reveal Decades of Corporate Misinformation (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2015) at 13 and Appendix C (available online at https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf.) Complete original document available at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3472843Climate-Deception-Dossier-WSPA-Chart.html#document/p1. 22