{"id":302585,"date":"2024-02-18T12:18:33","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T11:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=302585"},"modified":"2024-02-18T12:18:35","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T11:18:35","slug":"david-blackmon-the-billionaire-class-is-fueling-the-war-against-abundant-american-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=302585","title":{"rendered":"DAVID BLACKMON: The Billionaire Class Is Fueling The War Against Abundant American Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Daily Caller<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

DAVID BLACKMON<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DAVID BLACKMON IS AN ENERGY WRITER AND CONSULTANT BASED IN TEXAS. HE SPENT 40 YEARS IN THE OIL AND GAS BUSINESS, WHERE HE SPECIALIZED IN PUBLIC POLICY AND COMMUNICATIONS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been an open secret for years now that big foundations funded by billionaire families like the Gates, Getty, and Rockefeller clans have played a big role in funding the various climate alarmist campaigns to vilify so-called \u201cfossil fuels.\u201d Lesser known until recently is the role these billionaire foundations play in convincing various government entities to travel down the same path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fox News reported<\/a>\u00a0this week that several billionaire interests, led by the Rockefeller Family Fund, put pressure on the New York Attorney General\u2019s office during 2015 to target ExxonMobil with a subpoena for records related to an investigation into the company\u2019s early research related to global warming. A series of leaked emails between Lee Wasserman, long-time director for the RFF, and then-New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman\u2019s office first pitched the idea in early 2015. Schneiderman ultimately responded to the pressure, sending an initial subpoena to ExxonMobil in November that same year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RFF\u2019s involvement in the push to pursue ExxonMobil extended into influencing and paying for media coverage. In September, 2015, Inside Climate News published the first in a series of articles under what it called its \u201cExxon Knew\u201d series. The RFF funded that effort<\/a> via multi-million-dollar grants to ICN and its parent, Lost Light Projects, as reported in the Daily Caller in 2016. In October that same year, RFF grants were also behind a series of articles jointly published<\/a> by the Los Angeles Times and the Columbia School of Journalism, demonizing ExxonMobil. (RELATED: DAVID BLACKMON: Another Green Vehicle Pipe Dream Explodes Like The Hindenburg)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve spent years tracking the nexus between left-wing environmental groups and their billionaire funders, and this once again proves the connection between the financial, ideological, and political influences on the widespread legal attacks on the American energy industry,\u201d Tom Pyle, president of the Institute For Energy Research, said in an email. \u201cIt\u2019s clear that anti-oil sentiment in this country is being driven by this network of billionaires, activists, and politicians who show little concern for how their political campaigns hurt everyday Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategy behind the New York AG\u2019s investigation evolved out of a meeting<\/a> of climate activist organizations held in La Jolla, CA in 2012. There, a playbook was developed to attack the oil and gas industry using the same tactics that had been deployed against the tobacco industry starting in the 1980s. The plan\u2019s success hinged on identifying and co-opting a \u201csympathetic state attorney general\u201d willing to play the lead role in kicking off what would become an ongoing series of lawsuits targeting the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The activists ultimately landed on Schneiderman as their most likely and most willing partner. When Schneiderman was forced to resign due to a personal scandal<\/a>, his successor, current AG Letitia James, eagerly took up the torch. But the case was ultimately thrown out of court by the New York state Supreme Court, which characterized its claims as \u201chyperbolic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RFF was in the news earlier this month when, on Feb. 8, The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> it and other left-wing billionaire interests \u2013 including Michael Bloomberg \u2013 were instrumental in pressuring the Biden White House to implement its January \u201cpause\u201d on the permitting of proposed new liquefied natural gas export facilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citing sources \u201cfamiliar with the effort,\u201d the WSJ writers detail a billionaire-backed campaign that began four years ago to co-opt and organize local community activist groups to oppose new LNG export capacity even as U.S. LNG became such a crucial supply source for American allies in Europe in the wake of Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine. The activists then worked to \u201cbuttonhole\u201d administration officials at conferences and meetings around the world, pressuring them to freeze the process based on flimsy, hyperbolic climate alarm arguments similar to those behind the case against ExxonMobil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey got our attention,\u201d one unidentified White House official is quoted as saying by the Journal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, yes, they did, but to what end? While they are all promoted using lofty propaganda depicting these campaigns as efforts to curb the malleable concept of \u201cclimate change,\u201d what these and other efforts by the RFF and their billionaire collaborators invariably boil down to is increasing the cost of energy for the masses, diminishing U.S. energy security, and making our country increasingly reliant on China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, the only reasonable conclusion to make is that those outcomes are in fact the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter\u2019s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact\u00a0<\/em>licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been an open secret for years now that big foundations funded by billionaire families like the Gates, Getty, and Rockefeller clans have played a big role in funding the various climate alarmist campaigns to vilify so-called \u201cfossil fuels.\u201d Lesser known until recently is the role these billionaire foundations play in convincing various government entities to travel down the same path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":302591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"It has been an open secret for years now that big foundations funded by billionaire families like the Gates, Getty, and Rockefeller clans have played a big role in funding the various climate alarmist campaigns to vilify so-called \u201cfossil fuels.\u201d Lesser k","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691819743,691826993,691819194,691826994,691826995],"class_list":{"0":"post-302585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-climate-propaganda","10":"tag-eric-schneiderman","11":"tag-exxonmobil","12":"tag-rockefeller","13":"tag-tom-pyle","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/OIG-85.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1gIp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":420070,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=420070","url_meta":{"origin":302585,"position":0},"title":"Media ring the climate alarm but 2025\u00a0was the year of\u00a0Record-Low Extreme Weather Deaths","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"05\/01\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The claim that 2025 saw the fewest deaths from extreme weather ever is partially accurate but requires context. 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