In today's episode of "oil companies doing bad things", a US Congressional report implicates Canada Pension Plan-owned company in a pro-fracking campaign that involved fake-grassroots groups, misleading claims, paid counter-protesters & accusations of harassment + bribery 1/n
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2. 7 years ago,
@cppib
bought Encana's oil and gas wells in Colorado and created its own company, Crestone Peak Resources. Crestone has come under fire for providing $100K to an industry front group campaigning against a proposed fracking ban
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3. The US House Natural Resources Committee just released a report on PR companies role in blocking climate action which has a devastating case study on Protect Colorado (the front group Crestone was funding)
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4. Oil companies poured $85M into the campaign, $72M of which went to PR companies after being laundered through non-profits with innocuous-sounding names like Protect Colorado and Coloradans for Responsible Development.
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5. According to House report: "Oil & gas firmsโ creation & use of these nonprofits allowed them to effectively purchase the services of high-profile public relations firms to push their agenda while creating a concealing buffer between the firms themselves and the PR campaign"
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6. The report details what it calls "the extreme & unethical methods" employed by pro-fracking campaign: "misleading or exaggerated" claims, "accusations of harassing Proposition 112 signature gatherers, including hiring counter-protestors to track & follow signature gatherers"
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7. In addition, "a subcontractor admitted to taking a bribe of 'a lot' of money to stop working with Colorado Rising" and hand over the signatures he'd gathered to someone else (a previous contractor had broken the contract and left with 7 boxes of signature).
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8. The oil companies' "advertisements against proposed fracking restrictions ran 'under the brand of the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce (SMDC),' and 'concurrently under the banner of the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA),' creating the illusion of third-party mobilization."
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9. The wildest part of this whole sordid tale is that the House staffers got a lot of the info from an advertising awards submission made by the PR agency running the pro-fracking campaign. Whoops.
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10. You might admire the sheer ruthlessness of the Big Oil / PR team-up, but do we really want our public pension funding these kinds of no-holds-barred, deceptive political campaigns to block policies that protect public health and fight climate change?
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@climatekeith
Lots of problems with CPP investments. Also, other pension funds. Always good to know what your money is doing.
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@climatekeith
Crestone is STILL embroiled in litigation with counties that are trying to stop new production.
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