to luv exxon

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Weekend Edition

April 1 / 2, 2006

 

An Open Letter to New Exxon/Mobil CEO, Rex Tillerson

 

The Corporate Superpower of Superpowers

 

By RALPH NADER

 

Mr. Tillerson:

 

You have to be feeling pretty good about your new position heading the

world's largest oil and gas company. You stand astride the globe where,

with few exceptions, the Congress is like putty in your hands, the

White House is your House and the consuming public is powerless.

Governments in the Third World may huff and puff, but Exxon/Mobil

pretty much gets its way in dozens of arrangements completed and about

to be concluded.

 

Seven years ago, your predecessor, Lee Raymond, took over Exxon's main

competitor, Mobil Oil Company, through a merger approved by the

misnamed Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. Really, what is

left of antitrust standards when the number one and number two

companies in an industry are permitted to marry?

 

Profits of your company are beyond your dreams of avarice. Over $36

billion last year, after modest taxes, yet you blithely ignored urgent

pleas by members of Congress, especially that of the powerful Chairman,

Senator Chuck Grassley (Rep. Iowa) to contribute some significant

deductible money to charities which help impoverished American families

pay the exorbitant prices for heating oil this past winter. Rarely has

there been such a demonstration of corporate greed and insensitivity by

a company that has received huge government welfare subsidies,

de-regulation and tax expenditures over the years at the expense of the

smaller taxpayers of America.

 

Exxon/Mobil even relishes the latest " Big Oil's Big Windfall, " to use

the phrase in a recent /New York Times/ editorial, which wrote that

" oil companies stand to gain a minimum of $7 billion and as much as $28

billion over the next five years under an obscure provision in last

year's giant energy bill that allows companies to avoid paying

royalties [to Uncle Sam] on oil and gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico.

This welfare payment at a time of record crude oil, refined oil and

natural gas prices appears too much even for one of your industry's

giants. A Shell official told the /New York Times/ reporter, Edmund L.

Andrews, " Under the current environment, we don't need royalty relief. "

 

Exxon/Mobil doesn't feel any need to say something like that. You're a

corporate superpower at the pinnacle of your superpowers. No Ida

Tarbell, no Fred Cook, no Senator Phil Hart, no Sixty Minutes program

can effectively expose you, because the company has been exposed and

exposed and nothing changes your corporate policies.

 

Unchanged is Exxon/Mobil's stubborn refusal to pay the modest $5

billion punitive damage award following the Exxon Valdez oil spill that

damaged or put so many small businesses out of business. They are still

waiting, according to a recent network television expose. Last year

your company made that much post-tax profits in about seven weeks.

After the devastating spill in Alaskan waters, your gasoline prices

rose sharply in California and you made money there. And your delay for

12 years resisting the court ordered payout by legal maneuvers has

returned in interest on that award about that amount. Not that many

years ago, a company in your mega-profitable position would have

considered the public relations if not the simple justice benefits

before dragging on the proceedings. Not so, with the impregnable

Exxon/Mobil.

 

While BP and Shell move to build and talk about a solar power business,

including wind power, you continue to parade that window dressing

pittance of a project at Stanford University that is going nowhere.

Your company is still seen as a resistant skeptic among a swarm of

multinational companies including BP, that recognize Global Warming and

its direct fossil fuel connections.

 

To make matters worse, Exxon/Mobil has funded over three dozen

organizations to undermine scientific findings about global warming or

as front groups to engage in obstructionist or harassment activities.

 

These and other derelictions have led environmental groups to urge a

boycott (See exposeexxon.com) of Exxon/Mobil products and employment

refusals by university graduates. Only company insiders know how

effective such a boycott has been at the gasoline pump and elsewhere.

My guess is that you're shrugging it off as inconsequential. The

boycott clearly needs more imagination in getting its message out.

 

The lessons of history teach that the arrogance of corporate power

eventually meets its match, either through the decay of internal hubris

or the rise of public law enforcement or from private

challenges-innovative, civic or competitive.

 

Remember, the awesome power and market position of General Motors years

ago, or the dominance of IBM. When you're on top is when you should be

most alert to the misuses of power that are sowing the seeds of future

decline. The mean-spirited image of your company, the stinginess of

transferring some of your corporate welfare windfalls to the welfare of

millions of shivering children and their penurious parents are

upsetting even Republican members of Congress hearing from their

indignant constituents about sky high fuel prices.

 

So observers of your company-official and regular people-will be

waiting for signs of the post-Raymond, clenched jaw era of Exxon/Mobil

under the command of your group of executives. Let's see if the change

is just one of style or one of more sincere responses to the ways the

approaching winds are blowing.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ralph Nader

 

 

" NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may

have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this

without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse nor

protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President. "