It’s not every day that one of the world’s biggest corporations files an ethics complaint against a little-known government official -- in fact, if it’s happened before, I missed it --but that’s exactly what Chevron did last week in the state of New York.
The company accused Thomas DiNapoli, the state comptroller, who oversees the state’s pension fund, of accepting about $60,000 in campaign contributions from lawyers and supporters of people who are suing Chevron in Ecuador. The campaign donations, it is alleged, influenced DiNapoli to use his power as the trustee of the pension fund, which owns Chevron stock, to push Chevron to settle the long-running, bitterly-fought lawsuit.
Imagine. Politicians being influenced by campaign donations.
Chevron would know about that. Last month, the company donated $2.5 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC that supported House Republican candidates. The donation “appears to be the largest contribution from a publicly traded corporation to a political group” since the Supreme Court’s Citizen United ruling, The Washington Post reported. Chevron also spent nearly $15 million on Washington lobbying since the start of 2011, the Post said.
So … evidently, it’s fine for Chevron to lavish money on politicians -- the company said it supports candidates who are “committed to economic development, creating affordable energy, strengthening American businesses, and delivering good government” -- but unethical for its opponents to do so.
As it happens, Chevron’s complaint against DiNapoli was not even the most surprising news about the company to surface last week. Even more unexpected was the announcement that Chevron was being added to the holdings of the Nasdaq OMX CRD Global Sustainability Index, a “benchmark for stocks of companies that are taking a leadership role in sustainability performance reporting.”
The Nasdaq CRD Index is used to help guide investors seeking companies that are more sustainable. Just a few months ago, at the Rio + 20 confab, Nasdaq and several other stock exchanges promised, along with the UN Global Compact, to “promote long-term, sustainable investment in their markets.”
But what does that mean when an index includes Chevron, America’s second-biggest oil company?
Next page: How sustainability indexes deal with fossil fuel companies
"Super-Pacs... not the point"
"Super-Pacs... not the point" - FAIL!
From a practical standpoint, it doesn't matter whether I give $2.5M directly to Bob, or whether I give Beth $2.5M which I know will be given to Bob...either way my INTENT is to get Bob $2.5M. Super-Pacs are just a back-end method of funding candidates or issues.
With this factored into the equation, now the comparison in Mr. Gunther's article is again valid.
Good for Chevron! It's about
Good for Chevron! It's about time to fight back against eco-human-rights-ambulance chasers
Clueless
Clueless
Conflating donations to
Conflating donations to senate, house, and presidential candidates with pressure group donations to a state controller who then pressures a corporation presently in litigation with those very same donors is theater of the absurd (or green colored lenses; you choose).
Chevron gave around $99K to Romney, around $85K to Obama in 2012 election cycle. http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000015
When you get past Diane Feinstein (#12 on Chevron's 2012 donation list, by size), most federal candidates got $10K or less. More obscure federal candidates got as little as $4,000. Sure, the SuperPAC's give large amounts, but that's not the point here.
A STATE CONTROLLER got $60,000 (2/3 of what Chevron gave Romney directly, only $25,000 less than they gave Obama) from a few individuals in litigation with a corporation the controller then turned around and (green) pressured the corporation by trying to leverage pension funds. You find that equivalent?
Ironically, one of your own, Nell Greenberg/RAN has it about right on this subject: "However, unless a “data-driven” sustainability ranking builds in careful, qualitative judgments about a company’s overall social and environmental record, it will continue to miss the forest for the trees — VACUOUSLY patting company’s like oil giant Chevron on the back without taking into account reality on the ground or in our air and water." (emphasis mine)
Sustainabilchemists had BP as the #6 holding in the DJ Sustainability index on the morning of April 20, 2010 (ring a bell?). They had won around a dozen "sustainability" awards in the 8 years prior to that, all while I know for a fact that corroded pipelines in Alaska leaked 200,000 gallons of crude, while Texas City refinery exploded, and while BP had near a billion in CERCLA and similar soil/groundwater liabilities on their balance sheet. Missing the forest for the trees? Could you sustainabilchemists need any better evidence?
Where Greenberg has it wrong is the "qualitative" judgments. That's what got you sustainabilchemists in the described situation with BP. Substitute "qualitative" with "quantitative" and insert the words "scientific risk-based and economically cost/benefit justified" in front of the word "judgments" and then you'll have a start. (By present ESG standards, you demonstrate that you have no concept of what is material to human health and the environment.)
While patting BP on the back for "reducing their carbon footprint", or "increasing the numbers of women and minorities in senior management positions", all the above environmental ills went unresolved. Instead, you gave them awards! Many of these ills (contaminated soil, groundwater, sediments) posed potentially serious threats to human health and the environment. But reducing your "carbon footprint" gets you the #6 holding on the DJSI.
Got the picture yet? Let me know if I need to make it any clearer.
Your comment hits the nail on
Your comment hits the nail on the head. Unfortunately one needs a technical background to ascertain these professional propaganda machines and the general public is quite happy to believe these esoteric organizations are giving it to us straight. Many (not all) of the companies on the DOW sustainability index have their statements written by lawyers so as not to run afoul of green washing advocates.