Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in this, my 20th speech about the climate changes and ocean changes being driven by fossil fuels, I would like to discuss America's largest oil company, ExxonMobil. For decades, ExxonMobil did everything in its power to deceive the American public about the existence and causes of climate change. I believe that full transparency would show ExxonMobil and its agents still obstructing efforts here in Washington to resolve the climate crisis, but I want to focus on one particular audience I believe Exxon has long misled--its shareholders. An Exxon CEO once went so far as to cite a bogus scientists petition to his shareholders--yes, that infamous ``petition'' cooked up by climate deniers that included cartoon characters and Spice Girls among the scientists. For decades, Exxon investors have filed resolutions at shareholder meetings starting back as far as 1990 urging ExxonMobil to address climate and sustainability issues. Exxon succeeded in quashing every single one of them--quashing more than 40 shareholder resolutions in total, year after year--until last year. At last year's meeting, big institutional investors like BlackRock threw their weight behind a resolution requiring Exxon to produce an annual report explaining how it will be affected by climate change and global efforts to protect us against climate change. Again, Exxon fiercely opposed this resolution, but this time Exxon lost. The resolution passed with 62 percent of the vote.…”