Attorney General Eric Schneiderman must have hit a wall with his Exxon climate-change probe, since he’s suddenly changed his target.
No matter that his new pretext is as thin as his old: Attacking Big Oil is good politics on the left, especially in New York.
The AG now says he’s focused on “recent statements by ExxonMobil related to climate change,” The New York Times reported Friday. The question “is less what Exxon knew, and more what it predicts.”
Previously, Schneiderman went subpoena-fishing for proof that the company hid its research on climate change, as alleged by the #ExxonKnew conspiracy theorists.
The problem there was that Exxon for decades has been publishing research that fits right in with standard climatology.
The new excuse? The AG says Exxon might be overstating the value of its reserves, by failing to discount for the risk that climate warriors might drastically limit the use of carbon fuels. Collectively, he says, Big Oil may be “overstating their assets by trillions” — for “massive securities fraud.”
It’s a ludicrous stretch: Predicting such political risk is far from a science — and the company discloses the assumptions behind its valuations. Even if Exxon turns out to be wrong, as a spokesman notes, it’s not fraud.
And Schneiderman’s collaboration with other AGs seems to have fizzled. The Virgin Islands attorney general closed up his probe and withdrew his subpoenas; the Massachusetts AG has suspended her investigation.
E-mails released last week show other AGs supposedly cooperating to probe Exxon thought Schneiderman was going too far from the start: “Eric is himself the wild card,” one said. Another expressed unease about saying they were “investigating.”
Federal lawmakers think his probe itself may be illegal and have subpoenaed him. First Amendment champions blast the campaign for its chilling effect on the free speech of those with a perfect right to hold different views on climate change.
Schneiderman’s new tack will only continue to politicize scientific debate and reinforce New York’s image as anti-business.
It’s time for him to put the public’s interests before his own desire to please enviro-radicals — and end this probe for good.