Liberal Think Tanks Among Those Taking Donations From Exxon

A new disclosure shows the think tanks and universities that took ExxonMobil money in 2022.

by Donald Shaw, Sludge

In April 2021, an ExxonMobil lobbyist was covertly filmed by Greenpeace UK activists as he said that the company had aggressively fought against some climate science and had joined “shadow groups” to work against climate policy efforts. In response to the sting video, the bipartisan Climate Leadership Council suspended Exxon, one of its corporate founding members, from its coalition. However, several other groups that work on climate policy continued taking the oil major’s money, according to a document posted online last month.

ExxonMobil’s “Worldwide Giving Report” for 2022 reveals that the company remained in the good graces of several of the most influential think tanks in Washington D.C., including the Brookings Institution, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

exxon refinery in torrance, with a sign outside the facility

The Brookings Institution, which says on its website that “addressing climate change is one of the most pressing challenges we face today,” received $100,000 from ExxonMobil in 2022 for its Corporate Council and Foreign Policy Program, according to the document. Brookings has long called for the United States government to adopt a carbon price to discourage emissions of the greenhouse gas, something that the Exxon lobbyist, Keith McCoy, said the company claims to support in public as a public relations tactic. “Nobody is going to propose a tax on all Americans, and the cynical side of me says we kind of know that, but it gives us a talking point,” McCoy was recorded saying.