SMOKE AND FUMES
the world and the company.164 This
investigation has already revealed
significant evidence of potential corporate
malfeasance. For example, evidence from
the investigation indicates that, for years,
Exxon used a lower cost of carbon in
internal calculations than the one it
represented to investors and the public.165
In June 2017, Schneiderman’s office filed
the transcript of an interview with
Connie Feinstein, an information
technology security and consulting
manager at ExxonMobil, conducted as
part of this investigation.166 This
transcript revealed that, as CEO of
ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson used a secret
email address, under the alias “Wayne
Tracker.”167 Not only was this email
account secret, it was registered to
Romana Helble, an IT manager at the
company—ensuring there was no visible
link between Tillerson and the account.168
And, whereas Tillerson’s official emails
were preserved to accord with record
preservation requirements, the secret
account was subject to Exxon’s file purge
program, potentially deleting up to seven
months of Wayne Tracker emails.169
Notwithstanding Feinstein’s own role in
ensuring electronic compliance with
document production and audit
requirements, she stated that she was not
aware of the Wayne Tracker emails until
2017.170 She confirmed, however, that
several Exxon executives, including at
least one who was directly involved in
producing subpoenaed documents, were
aware of the account.171 Nonetheless,
Wayne Tracker emails were not initially
provided to the Attorney General’s office
as part of the investigation.
Even more striking is the fact that
Michele Hirshman, outside counsel for
ExxonMobil, testified that she had
knowledge of the secret email account in
early 2016.172 However, she chose not to
disclose the existence of the account as
she believed it would “be an interesting
test of whether the Attorney General’s
office is reading the documents[.]”173
The foregoing examples provide
compelling evidence that ExxonMobil
operated systematically, across years, and
with the complicity of multiple top-level
executives, to engage in schemes to, at
best, withhold critical information, and,
at worst, defraud investors and the public
at large. This evidence of deliberate
efforts to conceal critical corporate
information raises further questions about
what further investigations of Exxon will
uncover—and what future investigations
EXHIBIT 3
Excerpt from NY Attorney General’s Memo, 2017
19
into other major carbon producers may
reveal.
The Petroleum Industry Was
Researching Technologies that
Could Have Been Used to Mitigate or Avoid Climate Change
Major oil companies have been on notice
for decades of the potential risks their
core products pose to the atmosphere, the
climate, and the planet. This raises a
corollary question: What, if any,
opportunities were available to the oil
industry to avoid or reduce these risks?
The most important opportunity for
doing so would have been to immediately
reduce, or at least limit, the production of
oil, gas, and other fossil fuels until
emissions could be controlled. In fact, the
opposite occurred. More than half of all
global greenhouse gas emissions have
been emitted since 1988, well after oil
and gas producers were on clear notice of
climate risks.
Another opportunity for action would
have been to immediately and effectively
warn the public regarding the potential
climate risks associated with the
production and use of fossil fuels. As the
foregoing evidence demonstrates,
however, the industry repeatedly failed to
warn consumers, investors, and the
broader public about those risks; and,
indeed, engaged in ongoing and
systematic efforts to convince the public
that climate science was uncertain,
climate risks were nonexistent or
exaggerated, or that vital measures to
reduce carbon emissions and promote
cleaner energies were unwarranted or not
feasible.
Finally, oil and gas companies could have
moved quickly to design, develop, and
deploy new technologies to dramatically
curtail greenhouse gas emissions or to
replace greenhouse gas emitting fossil
fuels with cleaner energy alternatives.
Here, again, the available evidence
suggests that oil and gas companies had
the resources and opportunity to act, yet
repeatedly failed to do so.
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