Greta Thunberg/PHOTO: Stefan Mueller Climate (CC)
Four years ago Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, announced his organization would for the first time support a tax (or fee) on carbon dioxide (a “greenhouse gas”) that is produced from the combustion of hydrocarbons by energy companies. Now, given cover thanks to the courage of President Trump to resist the climate crazies who unrelentingly demand the elimination of fossil fuels, Sommers has emerged from his cowering posture and returned to his proper, upright position to support and defend the very products he is paid millions of dollars annually to promote. From Breitbart:
After years of climate hysteria, he believes that “energy reality has finally taken hold in the United States” as Americans reject the left’s doomsday climate narrative.
“We are not transitioning from anything to anything,” Sommers told Breitbart News. “We are going to need more energy, more kinds of energy going forward, and that is going to include a lot more oil and gas in the future.”
Sommers pointed to rapidly growing electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence and expanding data infrastructure….
“Natural gas is going to be the primary source to power the AI future,” he emphasized.
[Breitbart reporter Matthew] Boyle also asked Sommers about the International Energy Agency (IEA), which recently projected that global oil demand would peak by 2030. Boyle called that forecast “ludicrous and political.” Sommers agreed, noting the IEA has lost credibility in recent years.
“So we don’t need to get rid of the IEA. We need an IEA,” Sommers clarified. “We need better leadership. Leadership at IEA that looks at things, calls balls and strikes as an umpire, rather than as a politicized agency that is doing things that are in line with a political ideology.”
A quite hypocritical statement from Sommers, who slobbered all over the carbon dioxide tax idea as he perceived the political winds blowing contrary to the industries he was supposed to represent. But rather than aggressively and competently rebut the climate alarmism narrative, he instead capitulated, telling CNN in March 2021:
This is a pretty big deal for the industry. There is broad recognition that obviously the country has to do something on climate change. We want to be a willing partner with the Biden administration and others in Congress who are serious about taking on this challenge.
Ryan Lance/IMAGE: YouTube
Because of Sommers’s cowardice, NLPC in 2022 called upon ConocoPhillips Chairman/CEO Ryan Lance to remove the company from its API membership. I said during my presentation of our shareholder proposal at the annual meeting:
Americans are suffering under the highest gasoline prices in their lives.
And they are not only paying more at the pump – they are also sending much larger checks every month to their local electricity providers.
But what are ConocoPhillips and their allies at the American Petroleum Institute prioritizing?
A carbon dioxide tax.
Talk about being tone-deaf.
This is just one reason why my organization, as the shareholder sponsoring this proposal, seeks greater transparency and specificity from ConocoPhillips about its lobbying expenditure disclosures.
And while I’m at it, we believe it is no longer in shareholders’ interest for the company to remain as a member of API.
Let other fossil-fuel haters fund API President Mike Sommers’s $2.5 million-dollar annual salary to advocate for the demonization of his organization’s principal product.
And if a carbon dioxide tax continues to be a priority for Mr. [Ryan] Lance (pictured above), then his leadership should be revisited as well.
It shouldn’t require a unique politician like President Trump to come along to help you muster up the bravery you should have had all along to do your job. Same goes for ExxonMobil Chairman/CEO Darren Woods, who still wants to keep the United States in the Paris Climate Agreement.
Bold, independent-thinking adults seem to be a rarity among Corporate America’s executive management.
(AI image of Mike Sommers above produced via Grok)
