• Air

Refineries Belch Tons of Pollution During Texas Blackout

• #COVID
• air pollution
• ERCOT
• Exxon
• flaring
• Marathon
• power outages
• refineries
• Texas
• toxic
• Valero
• winterize

Despite over four million Texans losing power during the recent deep freeze, oil refineries released an increased amount of pollution into the air. In a state that leads the nation in both power production and carbon emissions, experts say that failure to winterize power infrastructure resulted in harmful releases of toxic air pollution. 

Why This Matters: Texas is the nation’s leading power producer, and to achieve this, the state has heavily deregulated not only its power grid but the fossil fuel industry as well.

• Energy

ExxonMobil Mired in Controversy after Monday’s Trump Rally

• #ExxonKnew
• Exxon
• Trump

by Natasha Lasky, ODP Contributing Writer At a  rally in Prescott, AZ, on Monday, President Donald Trump described a theoretical fundraising call he had with the CEO of ExxonMobil, in which he accepted a bribe from the oil giant.  Trump said: “I call the head of Exxon. I don’t know, you know, ‘How are you […]

• Climate Change

Maui Joins Growing Number of Counties and States Suing Big Oil

• Chevron
• climate change
• Exxon
• Hawaii
• Infrastructure
• Maui
• oil companies
• sea level rise
• Shell

By Amy Lupica, ODP Contributing Writer As Maui, Hawaii begins its “managed retreat” from its coastline due to sea-level rise caused by climate change, the county filed a lawsuit this week against big oil companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and ConocoPhillips to pay the costs of the move. The suit alleges that the companies knew […]

• Energy

ExxonMobil Plans to Emit 21 Million Additional Tons of Carbon Per Year

• climate change
• Exxon
• Exxon Mobil
• oil and gas

by Natasha Lasky, ODP Contributing Writer    Leaked internal documents from Exxon Mobil reveal that the corporation is planning for an increase in its annual carbon emissions by as much as the output of the entire nation of Greece. While plummeting oil prices in April drove Exxon to cut a third of its spending budget, […]

• Climate Change

Warren’s New Plan Would Punish Exxon for Lying to Regulators

• 2020
• climate action
• Elizabeth Warren
• Exxon

Yesterday, presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren released a plan (!) calling for companies who have misled federal regulators to be prosecuted under a new corporate perjury law.

She also singled out Exxon as her example, tying in climate change to her signature anti-corruption platform.

• Air

Texas chemical explosion kills worker, 3rd plant explosion in 3 weeks

• explosion
• Exxon
• Houstin
• oil and gas
• petrochemicals
• Texas

Yesterday in Crosby, Texas (about 25 miles northeast of Houston) a tank holding a flammable chemical caught fire at a KMCO chemical plant, killing one worker, critically injuring two others and sending panicked employees fleeing over a fence to safety. This was the third explosion in the petrochemical industry in the past 3 weeks (the […]