May 12, 2023 • 40 mins
James and Robert sit down with investigative journalist Amy Westervelt from Drilled to discuss the successful legal challenges to Exxon’s high risk drilling operation in Guyana.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Oh my goodness, it's it could happen here, a podcast
about things falling apart, putting them back together, and the
Sissifician task of occasionally trying to stop them from crumbling
as fast as they otherwise would. I'm Robert Evans, who
is not great at introducing this podcast, and I'm joined
with James, who is better at introducing this podcast. But
(00:28):
I strong harmed him out of it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Not true.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Well, we'll let the audience decide. So, James, today, you
and I are here to talk to a journalist that
we both like quite a lot, Amy Westervelt. Amy is
the host of a podcast called Drilled, which focuses on
shady stuff done by the oil and gas industry, and
(00:53):
particularly we're talking about season eight of Drilled, which is
focused on what Exon is doing in a South American
country called Guyana, and it's a really fascinating story. There's
a lot here, including kind of the way in which
oil and gas companies move in and in a kind
of predatory way, create contracts with smaller countries that don't
(01:17):
maybe have the legal resources to set themselves up as
well as they otherwise would, that don't have kind of
the long basis of environmental law rulings that like areas
that have been you know, used for by the oil
and gas industry for longer periods of time have and
kind of the fight by activists in that country to
(01:37):
rest control back from Exxon, and a bunch of other
stuff besides, Amy, welcome to the show. I think that's
that's enough of an intro from me.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Hi, thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, Amy, I'm curious kind of what got you started
thinking about and focusing on and really digging into what's
been happening in Guyana, Because obviously this is you know, uh,
the oil and gas industry is a topic of concern
for most progressives, but people tend to focus on, you know,
kind of the Permian basin, the Gulf of Mexico, obviously,
(02:10):
the Middle East, these places that are kind of seen
as traditionally more the bread basket of the oil and
gas industry.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I started looking at Guyana because I follow a lot
of Exxon's shareholder briefings and reports like that, and I
kept seeing them talking about about the project in Guyana,
and just how like the projections kept increasing so quickly,
(02:40):
and it got to a point where I was like,
hold on a second. They are projecting that this is
going to be producing more than the Permian Basin by
twenty twenty five. And this is a country that shipped
its first barrel of oil in twenty nineteen. That's incredible,
kind of unheard of that something would happen that fast.
So and I happened, like just so happened to have
(03:03):
had a friend years and years and years ago in
San Francisco who who like helped do I don't know,
like marketing for the tourism board in Guyana, and was
constantly telling me about how Guyana was this amazing eco
tourism destination. So I had this so I had this like,
this idea of Guyana in my head is like ecotourism central.
(03:26):
And then I kept seeing all of these updates around
around drilling there, so that's kind of what initially got
me interested. And then I got a press release about
a lawsuit being filed there by an attorney who was
trying to kind of stop the oil drilling.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So yeah, yeah, and this attorney has a has a
pretty interesting backstory herself, right she does.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And that was also very interesting because she actually was
in house council for BP.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, Deepwater Horizon.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. So she grew up in Guyana,
her family lap When she was around twelve or thirteen,
there was quite a bit of political unrest in Guyana
spurred like so many places by DAA and oh gosh,
like the history of Banna is really interesting. But anyway,
(04:21):
so there was a lot of political unrest. Family felt
it unsafe. They left. They went to Zambia and then Trinidad,
and then you end up going to school in England,
went to Oxford, you know, has this like very posh
ee accent now. And then at one point decided, you know,
(04:43):
she was working for BP and traveling all over and
and just kind of got fed up with it and
wanted to move back to Aana. So she moved back
started working for a corporate law firm there to get
very interested in environmental laws because at the time the
country was just starting to write its first environmental laws.
(05:08):
This is like mid nineties ish.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah. And one of the things you make a point
on in the podcast that is really is interesting is,
you know, I grew up in Texas and I had
a lot of friends from the Permian basin, and you
don't think of it, and you don't think of the
Gulf as like an area of strong environmental regulations, and
if you've spent any time in the Gulf of Mexico,
you certainly don't feel that way. But it actually, I mean,
(05:31):
it is not which.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Is not to say that they're strong enough, you know,
it's not to say that they are sufficient, but it's
I mean, and it's not just that there's stronger regulations there,
and the regulations are largely a product of how long
people have been taking gas out of oil out of
the ground.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
But it's also that because it's got a century, you know,
or so of being utilized by the industry, there's kind
of a there's a level of institutional knowledge built up
about how to do it relatively, which number one speaks
how inherently dangerous it is because the deep Water Horizon
disaster happens right in the heart of this area. But
it also means that when you've got a company like
(06:08):
x On starting work in a place like Ghana, they
don't have any of that, any of that build up
built up kind of competence or expertise in sort of
dealing with these problems.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, that's right. They don't have you don't have kind
of the heavy benchful of you know, experts just hanging
out looking for jobs. You don't have the disaster response
to expertise in case of a spill, for example, and
you also don't have the regulatory oversight expertise, which has
(06:39):
been a huge problem in Guyana. They got they got
a grant from the World Bank at one point. This
was also super controversial.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Was really interesting to me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, it was like it was right like right before
the World Bank issued its whole you know, we're not
gonna recommend fossil fuel developed as much anymore kind of pronouncement.
They sort of fast tracked this grant to Guyana to
create and grow like a petroleum regulatory department in its
(07:14):
EPA because they didn't have, like it didn't exist before,
so they started to build that out. And but you
know it's almost like they're building the regulatory apparatus as
they're starting to drill. So you can imagine like, how
well that's.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I think so I think you said in your podcast.
They dropped this hundreds of pages like environmental risk report,
and it got to prove the same day that they
received it, right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, it's like stamped, like the date of receipt and
the date of approval are stamped on the report and
it's the same day, so there's not a lot of
oversight happening.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Hey, some people are speed readers, Amy, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Spent all that well bank money on speed reading courses.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah yeah, really really yeah, I'm going to guess.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
They're very focused over there, Yes, yeah, so you know,
I mean they I actually talked to. I actually talked
to this guy who ran the EPA in Gayana, like
the first couple of years that they were producing oil,
and he had formerly worked for the Department of Energy
in the US and was trying to set up like
(08:33):
real oversight and like his recommendation was that they have
an EPA staff member actually physically on the production Bethel
at all times, which like, uh yeah, no one was into.
So that guy got fired.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah great, So maybe I'm talking about like the legal
panisher of Texas and the different system in Guyana would
be a good way to segue into talking about this
this like right space approach that they used to I
guess ultimately try and ensure some kind of responsibility was
taken by the oil companies. Can Yeah, yeah, do you
(09:16):
want to explain that for people.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
In terms of like the right to a healthy environment?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, I think it's very interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, it's really interesting. It's super interesting. So Melinda Jinki,
this lawyer who us worked for BP from Guyana, moved
home starts working on these laws. She helped to write
the country's first kind of environmental protection Act, which established
its EPA, and then in nineteen eighty six and again
in two thousand and three there were some revisions to
(09:47):
the constitution. So in early two thousands she worked on
getting a right to a healthy environment integrated into the constitution,
which basically just says, you know, you know, every citizen
has the right to a livable environment for you know,
themselves and for future generations. So that actually opened up
(10:13):
the ability for citizens to sue the government over this
oil dilling project. So there's a couple of people who
are doing that, and they are arguing that the government
is violating their right to a healthy environment by not
just permitting this offshore drilling, but doing it in this
(10:33):
really kind of reckless way where either a sort of
rubber stamping permits, they're not really providing any oversight excellon
like brags constantly about how this project is, Like, you know,
we've done in five years, what usually takes ten?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I asked them.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I was like, oh, is there like a new technology
or like a new drilling approach or something like. The
answer is, you know, more or less boils down to
a very quote unquote collaborative government.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
So you know, oh boy, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Good, very fast. You need to dig into that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Aproach, break things, not totally exactly, And and the Guyamese
government has this idea I think that, well they've they've
actually said this out loud a few times that like
net zero is uh, you know, commitments to net zero
is sort of like their timeline, you know, where they're like, okay, well,
(11:35):
you know everyone wants to get to net zero by
such and such dates, So we need to get oil
out of the ground as fast as possible and sell
it so that we can meet that zero, right, so.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And so.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And because of how really crappy the contract is for Anna,
they are kind of incentivized to do that as well,
because the faster they can get oil out of the
ground and sold, the faster they might be able to
kind of get to a place where actually getting sort
(12:11):
of their promised share of the oil money, so they
they're incentivized to move fast and kind of look the
way on stuff. I mean, there's the first two years
of that project. Exon talked publicly about the fact that
a pretty key piece of equipment on the boat was
broken for two years. That's cool. Yeah, and again it's
(12:40):
like a it's an offshore deep water drilling project. This
is like the most risky type of oil dren there is.
There's an enormous amount of pressure at that you know,
level of depth of the ocean. It's exactly the sort
of situations that deep water spill happened in, and a
lot of like similar kind of approaches to you maintenance
(13:01):
and safety happening. So yeah, not great.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Now, I wanted to talk a little bit one of
the things that you you kind of open up the
series with that I found very very intriguing and it's
something I've heard from other journalists in the same beat
as you, is that when you start work on a
project that focuses on Exon, some peculiar things start to
happen just like and nothing, nothing, nothing we can say
(13:38):
for certain, is like tied to Exxon Mobile.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, you do notice some like weird things. I wanted
to chat a little bit about that because it's it
does scan with other things I've heard from from other folks.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
True, it's true, and I you know, I report on
all of the oil companies, and none of them particularly
like journalists, especially journalists, and they, you know, will kind
of do the usual thing of sending you nasty emails
or refusing to have their executives talk to you like that.
But with Exon, it's like every every time I'm working
(14:13):
on an Excellon story, it's just like you know, if
I'm traveling, all my travel plans get canceled. There's always
just there's always just weird stuff that happens, like you know,
you start to feel like being watched and followed a lot.
And and yeah, it's super not just me that that experience.
(14:37):
I know that everyone I know that has reported on
them has said that's definitely like there's you know, just
a kind of an intimation thing that they like to do.
I actually was surprised that that Steve call who wrote
the book Private Empire about Exon, said to me, and
I have this in the podcast too, that he has,
(14:59):
you know, reported on al Qaida and reported on the
CIA and if he's ever like disappeared, he hold everyone
he knows that it's probably Exon. So so yeah, yeah
then and that definitely happened on this project too. Like
we my hotel room got canceled. Hotel room also got
(15:22):
broken into. Yeah, and it was one of those where
it's like I had cash on the nightstand was still there,
but like my computer was open with like certain files open,
things like that, and I don't keep like, you know,
sensitive files on my laptop and even in my hotel room.
But it was definitely like, Okay, this seems very pointed,
(15:47):
and you know.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah it's intimidation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally yeah,
normal and good and I know no.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
People always ask me, They're like, are you afraid of
getting sued by Exxon? And I was like, well, I
guess if I had assets, I would be afraid.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, the most concerning thing.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, but like I wonder I was really interested in
I get this legal approach which is very successful in Guyana, right,
and if we compare that, like if we come back
to the United States and I know there's a court case,
I think it was like it was I'm pretty sure
it's Boulder, Colorado. I might be wrong, but it was
somewhere like that where they they tried to sue oil
(16:37):
companies for causing fires.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Right, Yes, there's a climate liability case there and it's
still going. Actually it's still still alive. They just got
like a move in their favor at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Because yeah, it isn't the The case in the US
is a bit different, right, where we don't have this
constitutional right to like a healthy environment, and I'm sure don't. Yeah, yeah,
I didn't tell you.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Although actually, guess who does have that in the US
the Montana Yeah, the state of Montana. Yes, And so
there's like there's a case there actually that's invoking their
state constitutional right, which is very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
There's a lot of people don't know this about kind
of the northern western part of the country. You know,
Mountain Montana is it's not really the PNW, but it's
the Mountain West, which is that they had especially kind
of in like the seventies and eighties, this weird history
of like Republican governors, i think into the nineties of
(17:39):
the early nineties too, like Republican state leaders who were
also because I guess our national discourse wasn't so inherently
toxic really progressive in bizarre ways. It's one of like
probably the best governor Oregon ever had was a Republican
who's like one of his chief accomplishments was he made
all of the coastline in Oregon, both like Lake and
(18:01):
River coastline and the Ocean coastline public property. He like
set it up so that it's regulated like highways, basically
so that no one can own private beaches. Now there's
some little janky ways kind of around aspects of that,
but like as a general rule, it's a really positive thing,
and it's like not what you would expect from a Republican.
I think the same thing is true of that lawn Montana,
(18:22):
where it just like you used to be able to
have republic I mean like Nixon created the EPA, right,
it just didn't used to be the same kind of
partisan that it is today.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Even like in the early Trump era, there were a
decent number of Republican folks who like specifically opposed drilling
in bearsiars or like d.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Interesting wherever they went hunting or something.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah was like yeah, yeah, because we I was like
the outdoor industry to stop doing trade shows in Utah
because Utah was gonna The governor of Utah supported de
monumentizing a load of their like quote unquote hook and bullet.
People were like, yeah, fuck this, it's bad.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, I mean it's the same I think it's the
same category as like John McCain having a good take
on torture right where it's like, yeah, I mean they
live right there. Of course they don't want it destroyed.
But everybody's okay with you know, poisoning the Gulf or
you know the stuff that the that the coke industries
was guilty of having, like a fucking pipelines full of
(19:29):
holes running under towns but then explode.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, And that is actually like the number
it's like the number one thing that gets people on
on board with environmental regulation is like having something happen
and there in the community where they were like, wait
a minute, this doesn't seem fair. Same with Pasolinia, Like
people were really into frecking until it became like wait,
(19:54):
so if my neighbor has a lease and that lease
and poisoning my well, I have no records. Yes, that's
how it works. Welcome to America. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So
now I mean they're all like, actually, there's there's towns
and now that are acts being of the right space
(20:17):
thing that are invoking home rule and baking rights of
nature into their charters. And these are like pretty conservative
districts too, And the whole reason they're doing it I
have more local control over land use decision.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, which is probably I'm sure a mixed bag to
some degree.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Exactly because you could imagine that going in a bunch
of different ways.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yes, yeah, yeah, school board level exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Right. Now it's like to get rid of fracking waste sites,
but it could easily be yeah, we don't want any
I don't know, in degraded schools here for example. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah. I wondered it's different in the US in the
sense that like, id right, this this case in Guyana
went to the Supreme Court of Guyana, right, and is
that right?
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Several so, so Melinda has now filed seven different cases.
She's she's very busy, and most of them have wound
up at gay at the High Court of Guyana, which
is their supreme court. They just had a big verdict
in another case that she filed which is really interesting
(21:37):
and potentially huge game changer for oil drilling kind of
around the globe. They so in the environmental permit that
Exon had to get in order to start drilling offshore,
it is laid out as a requirement of that permit
that they have to have insurance policy from an independent insurer,
(21:59):
so they can't self ensure, which is what oil companies
usually do. They all have like their own insurance companies
to ensure their projects. It's bizarre, but anyway, so it
really it stipulates an independent insurance company and an unlimited
parent company guarantee. That's really really huge because basically in Guyana,
(22:23):
as in most other places that they're operating outside of
the US, they use like a local subsidiary that has
very few assets. So they have so Exploration and Production
Guyana Limited, which is worth maybe two billion dollars on paper,
and so you know, it's very handy for them to
(22:43):
you know, something bad happens and the subsidiary might get drained,
but the parent company is protected. It was actually written
into their permits they had to have this unlimited guarantee
that they will cover whatever damage is, which is important
because in all of the environment impact assessments, you know,
Exon's own environmental impact assessments. They're saying if there were
(23:07):
a well blowout, which is like what happened with deep water,
it would hit up to fourteen different Caribbean islands plus
various countries and like the northern coast of South America,
so like a really big problem. And these are mostly
countries that fry on tourism and for their economies. So
(23:28):
the argument that Melinda bade was, look, because the government
has been lacked in regulation and now they haven't required
this guarantee, you're opening up the citizens of this country
to risk because if there's a spill like this, these
countries could come to Guyana asking to be paid for
(23:50):
damages and we're not able to And now you've like
taken you know, exon thing for it off the table. Anyway,
the judge in their favor and said, yeah, you're right, Exon,
you need to have this in writing within thirty days. Yeah,
(24:11):
it's incredible. I mean that could really make it would
change the math considerably for this project, and I would
say most other projects that they're working on. The ep is.
It's the EPA and Exon were sort of like co
defendants in this case, the EPA is appealing also, like
(24:33):
just by way, when your EPA is a co defendant
with an oil company, there's something very wrong.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, might they might not be doing the p party.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Exactly, yes, exactly. So they're appealing, and you know, there's
a lot of government corruption and stuff going on, so
we'll see, we'll see what happens. But this judge, everyone
was like, I was talking to a journalist that we've
been working with there and she was like, yes, everyone's
very rid for his safety because like this this was
a big deal. And he really I mean in like
(25:07):
the most prim and proper legally is possible. He repeatedly
was like, e pa, why are you just being ex all's.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Bitch, it's here, what's going on.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
It's like it was like a real like whoa bomb
of a ruling. So so yeah, that's a big win.
The constitutional case is still they're still waiting for a
ruling in that case, but that's also the Supreme Court
that will be ruling on it because it's a constitutional argument.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah. Yeah, talking of being people's bait, it's probably time
for us to hate from our advertisers. Ah, yes, great, great, great,
great yeah, you off, and I disduncted. It was good.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
These these advertisers, none of whom are in any way
involved in the oil and gas industry. We actually can't
promise that, but you know, pretend we can. We're back
(26:19):
and continue to be blameless. All right, let's uh, should
we move on to talking about We chatted a little
before this started. And one of the things that kind
of is is perennially on or perpetually on our our
beat is different laws and and rules and attempts around
(26:40):
the world to crack down on the ability of people
to protest and exercise dissent, which you have some some
some thoughts on, and also some some information on kind
of the way in which the oil and gas industry
is tied to a lot of these legal kind of assaults.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah. Yeah, they are vary into cracking down on protests.
Andthing that I think is really interesting right now is
that you have the fossil fuel industry on the one hand,
working behind the scenes to you know, the American fuel
and petrochemical Manufacturers, which is the lobbying group for like
coke industries and a bunch of oil companies and all
(27:19):
of that they helped to write sample legislation in the
way of Standing Rock to pass around all of these
Republicans that would increase the science associated with protests and
jail time. And they also did a lot to try
to broaden it out to include organizations. So you know,
(27:43):
any anyone, any organization thing to organize or plan protests
can also be fined. In Kansas, they included a reco
charge in that, so you know, they're trying to make
protest organized crime. But at the same time that they're
doing all of that stuff, the number one argument that
(28:04):
the fossil fuel industry is making in all of the
climate cases against it in the US is a corporate
free speech argument, and that is like it's terrifying. So actually,
and you mentioned Boulder before, there's been there's like twenty
fourish of these cases where towns or cities or states
(28:25):
are saying, hey, it's really expensive for us to adapt
to all of these climate risks, and it would be
less expensive if the oil and gas companies had kept
everyone from doing anything about this for the last forty years.
Therefore they should pay some portion of the cost. That's
like the basic argument. And the oil companies for the
(28:46):
last three or four years have been saying, you know, oh,
you're trying to get around federal law by bringing these
in state court, and these cases belong in droll court.
The Supreme Court finally declined to hear that argument. That
Department of Justice was like, they can stay in state court,
it's fine. So that argument is sort of dead in
the water. But they've already started with like their next
(29:10):
attempt to get these cases to the Supreme Court, and
it's this free speech argument that they've been making, which
basically says, look, anything we've ever said about climate change
was in the interest of shaping policy. That makes it
political speech or in like legal words, petitioning speech, and
(29:31):
therefore protected by the First Amendment. Now they're saying, in
these cases, our First Amendment argument is foundational to our arguments.
Therefore these can't be in state courts can't rule on
like key First Amendment issues. So I'm convinced that one
(29:52):
of these cases is going to be the next Citizens
United and this Supreme Court. That's very, very scary. You know,
they're talking about blurring the like they're basically saying, like,
lying can be free, can be protected if it's in
the interest of shaping policy. A particular way.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, it's fine. We're okay with lying if it's good
for us, which is you know, is enity whenever I'm
pulled over by the police, but probably probably oil and
gas company should be helped you so you can see.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
It's like bad, but like really for everything, very bad
if that gets said. Yeah, so yeah, they're doing that
at the same time that they're trying to limit individual
free speech. And I think that parallel is well a
not accidental but very very gross and disturbing.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, very much. Sure, Like I think it's interesting yet
that try like that. They very clearly see this Supreme
Court it's like the the one to go for, right,
not that it's going anywhere anytime soon. I guess didn't
Amy County parrots like like Dad wasn't a shell.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Yeah you word for Shepherd like twenty years.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
He sure did, of course, because yeah, there's a class
thing happening, and she.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Never accuses herself on any of these cases ever. Also, Elito,
I think it's Alito has stock in conicophillis, So that cool,
that's cool.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Clarence Thomas rig.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah, it was gifted to him by someone. Yeah statue, yeah, yeah,
so yeah, I think it's it's and and I mean
they they have said out loud in multiple places that
the whole push to criminalize protests was one hundred percent
(31:46):
of reaction to Standing Rock. Yeah, they were very freaked
out by that. I think they always have like a
an ozed reaction to anything that Indigenous people are doing. Period.
It's like that whole gross extra layer to it. And
then actually elsewhere too, like in in Canada this like
(32:13):
we're working with a reporter who's been looking into this
in Canada for a while. His name is Jeff Dembicky,
and he's found that there's the oil and gas companies
there like wrote down in strategies. I don't know why
these guys write this stuff down all the time, but
they wrote down, we're gonna make First Nations people the
(32:34):
face of climate protests because that'll make it vilified climate
protest in the press.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Wow. Yeah, Jesus Christ, sorry that one.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
So and the very similar thing there too, where it's
like increasing fines and jail time and you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
It's interesting. Yeah, it's like in the US anyway, like
if you look at the bleeding edge of Setler colonialism,
it's it's nearly always fossil fuel extraction, right, like if
like Oak Flat, the proposed extraction of lithium on tribal lands,
like a lot of these the nexus of like protest
(33:19):
and yeah, like colonialism will be these. I guess not
lithium is in a fossil fuel, but these extractive projects
on tribal land.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Yeah, yes, yes, which is why actually the the rights
of nature stuff is becoming really interesting in tribal courts. So,
I don't know you guys followed this, but like with
the Line three protests, the the tribe there, they they
(33:53):
actually filed a case against the Minnesota I don't know
department pulled works or something like that, and they they
were like, look, we have a in their case. It's
monomen the rights of monomen So monomen is. Oh god,
(34:14):
I just went out of my mind entirely. It's uh
wild rice. Sorry, okay. Monomen is the word is the
Indigenous word for wild rice, and they have rights for
this rice written into their tribal laws. And so they're saying, look,
based on our treaties, you are actually violating this law
(34:38):
and therefore we can we can take you to court
in tribal court to stop this pipeline. It didn't work
to stop Line three, but actually the case is still
making its way through the courts because the Minnesota DPW.
You tried to say, look, tible court has action over
us and the state court. It was like, a, yeah
(35:00):
they do actually, because treaties exist.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
So it's really interesting because now it's the same tribe
that is potentially impacted by Line five in Michigan and
they are looking at using the same argument, and it
could end up actually working there because there's now been
enough time that you know, it could it could make
its way to the courts and set a precedent. But anyway, Yeah,
(35:29):
it's really really really interesting.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, that's very that's really weirdly similar to the Kumii
people here in San Diego who are challenging the construction
or quote unquote repair, which is not what's happening at
the wool.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Yeah, that's what they all say about the pipelines too.
It's always repairing an old pipeline, but you look at
the plan and it's like that's a whole new ass pipeline. Yeah,
in a different place than it was before.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, they're repairing a three foot fence with
a thirty foot steel barrier. But yeah, they it cuts
directly through burial grounds here, and they're repairing it by
destroying the burial grounds, which again they they've opposed with
mixed results, I guess, but it's yeah, I guess if
folks are listening and they're interested, there are a lot
(36:19):
of places where they can they can help those struggles,
like different ways to do that, but that there might
be more effective here than going to the Supreme Court,
given the Supreme Court's composition.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I guess, exactly, yeah, exactly, that's why. Yeah, with the
the tribal court stuff, I think will be interesting to
watch in the next couple of years to see if
they're able to to do anything. But you know, tribal
solomnties all under attack by the Supreme.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, They're likelihood of resulting in like
indigenous nations getting ever more fucked by the it's equally
high as I could having.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Success, I guess.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah. Anyway, Sorry, I got really far afield there. The
counter protest uff is very very very much being driven
by oil and gas, and there's it just keeps going too.
I mean every year, there's like, you know, multiple more
of these laws being proposed and passed. I think we're
(37:25):
at twenty eights now have passed them, fourteen or fifteen
have actually implemented them.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
And.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah, it's not not great.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
No.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
I also think, like, you know, you're seeing the expansion
of the whole eco terrorist and really like come back
with a vengeance too. I feel like that was something
that happened in like early posts nine to eleven days
and is now happening again where it's it's like, I
don't know, let's expand the definition of rorism to include
(38:02):
environmental activists and then we can, you know, go after
them with those charges too. I haven't in cop City too, right.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yes, they are in the process, so still doing that. Yeah, great, well, Amy,
this is all really important you have I'm so we are.
This is a this is a real meeting of the
people who are fun at parties sit down and you
(38:36):
know that dissent has been criminalized.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I don't know, man, I guess I'll have a Manhattan
like what do you what do you want?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
The last party Robot and I attended together, we we
saw a car bomb happened.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So at least that we did see a car bomb happen.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, bring positive vibes.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
You're not talking about.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Monstrative car bomb, you know, Yeah, no, no, no, it
was an Irish car It would have gotten more people.
That's a little bit of a little bit of IRA
humor for the audience. Okay, we should.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Probably go, I'm making the next slash motion.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah all right, well, Amy, we thank you so much
for coming on today, and thank you for continuing to
put out a podcast that is keep that can, at
least if people, you know, listen, keep them very updated
on some of the most important climate related news going
(39:47):
on today and some of the real like fuckery being
carried out by the oil and gas industry. Again, the
podcast is Drilled. Season eight right now is about Exxon
in Guyana. Amy, you have anything else you wanted to
say before we we roll out?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
No, that's it. Thanks for having me. This was fun.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, thank you so much. Amy, really appreciate it. And
uh yeah, this has been Robert and James. We should
probably do something on the Thames at some point. James,
it'll rhyme. I know it's not pronounced that way. I know,
this was just me.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Let's do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
We could call it Robert and Jim's on the times.
You know, there we go.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Absolutely no.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Podcast is over.
Speaker 5 (40:35):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Oh my goodness, it's it could happen here, a podcast
about things falling apart, putting them back together, and the
Sissifician task of occasionally trying to stop them from crumbling
as fast as they otherwise would. I'm Robert Evans, who
is not great at introducing this podcast, and I'm joined
with James, who is better at introducing this podcast. But
(00:28):
I strong harmed him out of it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Not true.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Well, we'll let the audience decide. So, James, today, you
and I are here to talk to a journalist that
we both like quite a lot, Amy Westervelt. Amy is
the host of a podcast called Drilled, which focuses on
shady stuff done by the oil and gas industry, and
(00:53):
particularly we're talking about season eight of Drilled, which is
focused on what Exon is doing in a South American
country called Guyana, and it's a really fascinating story. There's
a lot here, including kind of the way in which
oil and gas companies move in and in a kind
of predatory way, create contracts with smaller countries that don't
(01:17):
maybe have the legal resources to set themselves up as
well as they otherwise would, that don't have kind of
the long basis of environmental law rulings that like areas
that have been you know, used for by the oil
and gas industry for longer periods of time have and
kind of the fight by activists in that country to
(01:37):
rest control back from Exxon, and a bunch of other
stuff besides, Amy, welcome to the show. I think that's
that's enough of an intro from me.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Hi, thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, Amy, I'm curious kind of what got you started
thinking about and focusing on and really digging into what's
been happening in Guyana, Because obviously this is you know, uh,
the oil and gas industry is a topic of concern
for most progressives, but people tend to focus on, you know,
kind of the Permian basin, the Gulf of Mexico, obviously,
(02:10):
the Middle East, these places that are kind of seen
as traditionally more the bread basket of the oil and
gas industry.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I started looking at Guyana because I follow a lot
of Exxon's shareholder briefings and reports like that, and I
kept seeing them talking about about the project in Guyana,
and just how like the projections kept increasing so quickly,
(02:40):
and it got to a point where I was like,
hold on a second. They are projecting that this is
going to be producing more than the Permian Basin by
twenty twenty five. And this is a country that shipped
its first barrel of oil in twenty nineteen. That's incredible,
kind of unheard of that something would happen that fast.
So and I happened, like just so happened to have
(03:03):
had a friend years and years and years ago in
San Francisco who who like helped do I don't know,
like marketing for the tourism board in Guyana, and was
constantly telling me about how Guyana was this amazing eco
tourism destination. So I had this so I had this like,
this idea of Guyana in my head is like ecotourism central.
(03:26):
And then I kept seeing all of these updates around
around drilling there, so that's kind of what initially got
me interested. And then I got a press release about
a lawsuit being filed there by an attorney who was
trying to kind of stop the oil drilling.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So yeah, yeah, and this attorney has a has a
pretty interesting backstory herself, right she does.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And that was also very interesting because she actually was
in house council for BP.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, Deepwater Horizon.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. So she grew up in Guyana,
her family lap When she was around twelve or thirteen,
there was quite a bit of political unrest in Guyana
spurred like so many places by DAA and oh gosh,
like the history of Banna is really interesting. But anyway,
(04:21):
so there was a lot of political unrest. Family felt
it unsafe. They left. They went to Zambia and then Trinidad,
and then you end up going to school in England,
went to Oxford, you know, has this like very posh
ee accent now. And then at one point decided, you know,
(04:43):
she was working for BP and traveling all over and
and just kind of got fed up with it and
wanted to move back to Aana. So she moved back
started working for a corporate law firm there to get
very interested in environmental laws because at the time the
country was just starting to write its first environmental laws.
(05:08):
This is like mid nineties ish.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah. And one of the things you make a point
on in the podcast that is really is interesting is,
you know, I grew up in Texas and I had
a lot of friends from the Permian basin, and you
don't think of it, and you don't think of the
Gulf as like an area of strong environmental regulations, and
if you've spent any time in the Gulf of Mexico,
you certainly don't feel that way. But it actually, I mean,
(05:31):
it is not which.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Is not to say that they're strong enough, you know,
it's not to say that they are sufficient, but it's
I mean, and it's not just that there's stronger regulations there,
and the regulations are largely a product of how long
people have been taking gas out of oil out of
the ground.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
But it's also that because it's got a century, you know,
or so of being utilized by the industry, there's kind
of a there's a level of institutional knowledge built up
about how to do it relatively, which number one speaks
how inherently dangerous it is because the deep Water Horizon
disaster happens right in the heart of this area. But
it also means that when you've got a company like
(06:08):
x On starting work in a place like Ghana, they
don't have any of that, any of that build up
built up kind of competence or expertise in sort of
dealing with these problems.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, that's right. They don't have you don't have kind
of the heavy benchful of you know, experts just hanging
out looking for jobs. You don't have the disaster response
to expertise in case of a spill, for example, and
you also don't have the regulatory oversight expertise, which has
(06:39):
been a huge problem in Guyana. They got they got
a grant from the World Bank at one point. This
was also super controversial.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Was really interesting to me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, it was like it was right like right before
the World Bank issued its whole you know, we're not
gonna recommend fossil fuel developed as much anymore kind of pronouncement.
They sort of fast tracked this grant to Guyana to
create and grow like a petroleum regulatory department in its
(07:14):
EPA because they didn't have, like it didn't exist before,
so they started to build that out. And but you
know it's almost like they're building the regulatory apparatus as
they're starting to drill. So you can imagine like, how
well that's.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I think so I think you said in your podcast.
They dropped this hundreds of pages like environmental risk report,
and it got to prove the same day that they
received it, right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, it's like stamped, like the date of receipt and
the date of approval are stamped on the report and
it's the same day, so there's not a lot of
oversight happening.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Hey, some people are speed readers, Amy, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Spent all that well bank money on speed reading courses.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah yeah, really really yeah, I'm going to guess.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
They're very focused over there, Yes, yeah, so you know,
I mean they I actually talked to. I actually talked
to this guy who ran the EPA in Gayana, like
the first couple of years that they were producing oil,
and he had formerly worked for the Department of Energy
in the US and was trying to set up like
(08:33):
real oversight and like his recommendation was that they have
an EPA staff member actually physically on the production Bethel
at all times, which like, uh yeah, no one was into.
So that guy got fired.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah great, So maybe I'm talking about like the legal
panisher of Texas and the different system in Guyana would
be a good way to segue into talking about this
this like right space approach that they used to I
guess ultimately try and ensure some kind of responsibility was
taken by the oil companies. Can Yeah, yeah, do you
(09:16):
want to explain that for people.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
In terms of like the right to a healthy environment?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, I think it's very interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, it's really interesting. It's super interesting. So Melinda Jinki,
this lawyer who us worked for BP from Guyana, moved
home starts working on these laws. She helped to write
the country's first kind of environmental protection Act, which established
its EPA, and then in nineteen eighty six and again
in two thousand and three there were some revisions to
(09:47):
the constitution. So in early two thousands she worked on
getting a right to a healthy environment integrated into the constitution,
which basically just says, you know, you know, every citizen
has the right to a livable environment for you know,
themselves and for future generations. So that actually opened up
(10:13):
the ability for citizens to sue the government over this
oil dilling project. So there's a couple of people who
are doing that, and they are arguing that the government
is violating their right to a healthy environment by not
just permitting this offshore drilling, but doing it in this
(10:33):
really kind of reckless way where either a sort of
rubber stamping permits, they're not really providing any oversight excellon
like brags constantly about how this project is, Like, you know,
we've done in five years, what usually takes ten?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I asked them.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I was like, oh, is there like a new technology
or like a new drilling approach or something like. The
answer is, you know, more or less boils down to
a very quote unquote collaborative government.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
So you know, oh boy, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Good, very fast. You need to dig into that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Aproach, break things, not totally exactly, And and the Guyamese
government has this idea I think that, well they've they've
actually said this out loud a few times that like
net zero is uh, you know, commitments to net zero
is sort of like their timeline, you know, where they're like, okay, well,
(11:35):
you know everyone wants to get to net zero by
such and such dates, So we need to get oil
out of the ground as fast as possible and sell
it so that we can meet that zero, right, so.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And so.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And because of how really crappy the contract is for Anna,
they are kind of incentivized to do that as well,
because the faster they can get oil out of the
ground and sold, the faster they might be able to
kind of get to a place where actually getting sort
(12:11):
of their promised share of the oil money, so they
they're incentivized to move fast and kind of look the
way on stuff. I mean, there's the first two years
of that project. Exon talked publicly about the fact that
a pretty key piece of equipment on the boat was
broken for two years. That's cool. Yeah, and again it's
(12:40):
like a it's an offshore deep water drilling project. This
is like the most risky type of oil dren there is.
There's an enormous amount of pressure at that you know,
level of depth of the ocean. It's exactly the sort
of situations that deep water spill happened in, and a
lot of like similar kind of approaches to you maintenance
(13:01):
and safety happening. So yeah, not great.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Now, I wanted to talk a little bit one of
the things that you you kind of open up the
series with that I found very very intriguing and it's
something I've heard from other journalists in the same beat
as you, is that when you start work on a
project that focuses on Exon, some peculiar things start to
happen just like and nothing, nothing, nothing we can say
(13:38):
for certain, is like tied to Exxon Mobile.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, you do notice some like weird things. I wanted
to chat a little bit about that because it's it
does scan with other things I've heard from from other folks.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
True, it's true, and I you know, I report on
all of the oil companies, and none of them particularly
like journalists, especially journalists, and they, you know, will kind
of do the usual thing of sending you nasty emails
or refusing to have their executives talk to you like that.
But with Exon, it's like every every time I'm working
(14:13):
on an Excellon story, it's just like you know, if
I'm traveling, all my travel plans get canceled. There's always
just there's always just weird stuff that happens, like you know,
you start to feel like being watched and followed a lot.
And and yeah, it's super not just me that that experience.
(14:37):
I know that everyone I know that has reported on
them has said that's definitely like there's you know, just
a kind of an intimation thing that they like to do.
I actually was surprised that that Steve call who wrote
the book Private Empire about Exon, said to me, and
I have this in the podcast too, that he has,
(14:59):
you know, reported on al Qaida and reported on the
CIA and if he's ever like disappeared, he hold everyone
he knows that it's probably Exon. So so yeah, yeah
then and that definitely happened on this project too. Like
we my hotel room got canceled. Hotel room also got
(15:22):
broken into. Yeah, and it was one of those where
it's like I had cash on the nightstand was still there,
but like my computer was open with like certain files open,
things like that, and I don't keep like, you know,
sensitive files on my laptop and even in my hotel room.
But it was definitely like, Okay, this seems very pointed,
(15:47):
and you know.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah it's intimidation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally yeah,
normal and good and I know no.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
People always ask me, They're like, are you afraid of
getting sued by Exxon? And I was like, well, I
guess if I had assets, I would be afraid.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, the most concerning thing.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, but like I wonder I was really interested in
I get this legal approach which is very successful in Guyana, right,
and if we compare that, like if we come back
to the United States and I know there's a court case,
I think it was like it was I'm pretty sure
it's Boulder, Colorado. I might be wrong, but it was
somewhere like that where they they tried to sue oil
(16:37):
companies for causing fires.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Right, Yes, there's a climate liability case there and it's
still going. Actually it's still still alive. They just got
like a move in their favor at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Because yeah, it isn't the The case in the US
is a bit different, right, where we don't have this
constitutional right to like a healthy environment, and I'm sure don't. Yeah, yeah,
I didn't tell you.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Although actually, guess who does have that in the US
the Montana Yeah, the state of Montana. Yes, And so
there's like there's a case there actually that's invoking their
state constitutional right, which is very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
There's a lot of people don't know this about kind
of the northern western part of the country. You know,
Mountain Montana is it's not really the PNW, but it's
the Mountain West, which is that they had especially kind
of in like the seventies and eighties, this weird history
of like Republican governors, i think into the nineties of
(17:39):
the early nineties too, like Republican state leaders who were
also because I guess our national discourse wasn't so inherently
toxic really progressive in bizarre ways. It's one of like
probably the best governor Oregon ever had was a Republican
who's like one of his chief accomplishments was he made
all of the coastline in Oregon, both like Lake and
(18:01):
River coastline and the Ocean coastline public property. He like
set it up so that it's regulated like highways, basically
so that no one can own private beaches. Now there's
some little janky ways kind of around aspects of that,
but like as a general rule, it's a really positive thing,
and it's like not what you would expect from a Republican.
I think the same thing is true of that lawn Montana,
(18:22):
where it just like you used to be able to
have republic I mean like Nixon created the EPA, right,
it just didn't used to be the same kind of
partisan that it is today.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Even like in the early Trump era, there were a
decent number of Republican folks who like specifically opposed drilling
in bearsiars or like d.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Interesting wherever they went hunting or something.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah was like yeah, yeah, because we I was like
the outdoor industry to stop doing trade shows in Utah
because Utah was gonna The governor of Utah supported de
monumentizing a load of their like quote unquote hook and bullet.
People were like, yeah, fuck this, it's bad.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, I mean it's the same I think it's the
same category as like John McCain having a good take
on torture right where it's like, yeah, I mean they
live right there. Of course they don't want it destroyed.
But everybody's okay with you know, poisoning the Gulf or
you know the stuff that the that the coke industries
was guilty of having, like a fucking pipelines full of
(19:29):
holes running under towns but then explode.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, And that is actually like the number
it's like the number one thing that gets people on
on board with environmental regulation is like having something happen
and there in the community where they were like, wait
a minute, this doesn't seem fair. Same with Pasolinia, Like
people were really into frecking until it became like wait,
(19:54):
so if my neighbor has a lease and that lease
and poisoning my well, I have no records. Yes, that's
how it works. Welcome to America. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So
now I mean they're all like, actually, there's there's towns
and now that are acts being of the right space
(20:17):
thing that are invoking home rule and baking rights of
nature into their charters. And these are like pretty conservative
districts too, And the whole reason they're doing it I
have more local control over land use decision.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, which is probably I'm sure a mixed bag to
some degree.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Exactly because you could imagine that going in a bunch
of different ways.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yes, yeah, yeah, school board level exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Right. Now it's like to get rid of fracking waste sites,
but it could easily be yeah, we don't want any
I don't know, in degraded schools here for example. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah. I wondered it's different in the US in the
sense that like, id right, this this case in Guyana
went to the Supreme Court of Guyana, right, and is
that right?
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Several so, so Melinda has now filed seven different cases.
She's she's very busy, and most of them have wound
up at gay at the High Court of Guyana, which
is their supreme court. They just had a big verdict
in another case that she filed which is really interesting
(21:37):
and potentially huge game changer for oil drilling kind of
around the globe. They so in the environmental permit that
Exon had to get in order to start drilling offshore,
it is laid out as a requirement of that permit
that they have to have insurance policy from an independent insurer,
(21:59):
so they can't self ensure, which is what oil companies
usually do. They all have like their own insurance companies
to ensure their projects. It's bizarre, but anyway, so it
really it stipulates an independent insurance company and an unlimited
parent company guarantee. That's really really huge because basically in Guyana,
(22:23):
as in most other places that they're operating outside of
the US, they use like a local subsidiary that has
very few assets. So they have so Exploration and Production
Guyana Limited, which is worth maybe two billion dollars on paper,
and so you know, it's very handy for them to
(22:43):
you know, something bad happens and the subsidiary might get drained,
but the parent company is protected. It was actually written
into their permits they had to have this unlimited guarantee
that they will cover whatever damage is, which is important
because in all of the environment impact assessments, you know,
Exon's own environmental impact assessments. They're saying if there were
(23:07):
a well blowout, which is like what happened with deep water,
it would hit up to fourteen different Caribbean islands plus
various countries and like the northern coast of South America,
so like a really big problem. And these are mostly
countries that fry on tourism and for their economies. So
(23:28):
the argument that Melinda bade was, look, because the government
has been lacked in regulation and now they haven't required
this guarantee, you're opening up the citizens of this country
to risk because if there's a spill like this, these
countries could come to Guyana asking to be paid for
(23:50):
damages and we're not able to And now you've like
taken you know, exon thing for it off the table. Anyway,
the judge in their favor and said, yeah, you're right, Exon,
you need to have this in writing within thirty days. Yeah,
(24:11):
it's incredible. I mean that could really make it would
change the math considerably for this project, and I would
say most other projects that they're working on. The ep is.
It's the EPA and Exon were sort of like co
defendants in this case, the EPA is appealing also, like
(24:33):
just by way, when your EPA is a co defendant
with an oil company, there's something very wrong.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, might they might not be doing the p party.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Exactly, yes, exactly. So they're appealing, and you know, there's
a lot of government corruption and stuff going on, so
we'll see, we'll see what happens. But this judge, everyone
was like, I was talking to a journalist that we've
been working with there and she was like, yes, everyone's
very rid for his safety because like this this was
a big deal. And he really I mean in like
(25:07):
the most prim and proper legally is possible. He repeatedly
was like, e pa, why are you just being ex all's.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Bitch, it's here, what's going on.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
It's like it was like a real like whoa bomb
of a ruling. So so yeah, that's a big win.
The constitutional case is still they're still waiting for a
ruling in that case, but that's also the Supreme Court
that will be ruling on it because it's a constitutional argument.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah. Yeah, talking of being people's bait, it's probably time
for us to hate from our advertisers. Ah, yes, great, great, great,
great yeah, you off, and I disduncted. It was good.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
These these advertisers, none of whom are in any way
involved in the oil and gas industry. We actually can't
promise that, but you know, pretend we can. We're back
(26:19):
and continue to be blameless. All right, let's uh, should
we move on to talking about We chatted a little
before this started. And one of the things that kind
of is is perennially on or perpetually on our our
beat is different laws and and rules and attempts around
(26:40):
the world to crack down on the ability of people
to protest and exercise dissent, which you have some some
some thoughts on, and also some some information on kind
of the way in which the oil and gas industry
is tied to a lot of these legal kind of assaults.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah. Yeah, they are vary into cracking down on protests.
Andthing that I think is really interesting right now is
that you have the fossil fuel industry on the one hand,
working behind the scenes to you know, the American fuel
and petrochemical Manufacturers, which is the lobbying group for like
coke industries and a bunch of oil companies and all
(27:19):
of that they helped to write sample legislation in the
way of Standing Rock to pass around all of these
Republicans that would increase the science associated with protests and
jail time. And they also did a lot to try
to broaden it out to include organizations. So you know,
(27:43):
any anyone, any organization thing to organize or plan protests
can also be fined. In Kansas, they included a reco
charge in that, so you know, they're trying to make
protest organized crime. But at the same time that they're
doing all of that stuff, the number one argument that
(28:04):
the fossil fuel industry is making in all of the
climate cases against it in the US is a corporate
free speech argument, and that is like it's terrifying. So actually,
and you mentioned Boulder before, there's been there's like twenty
fourish of these cases where towns or cities or states
(28:25):
are saying, hey, it's really expensive for us to adapt
to all of these climate risks, and it would be
less expensive if the oil and gas companies had kept
everyone from doing anything about this for the last forty years.
Therefore they should pay some portion of the cost. That's
like the basic argument. And the oil companies for the
(28:46):
last three or four years have been saying, you know, oh,
you're trying to get around federal law by bringing these
in state court, and these cases belong in droll court.
The Supreme Court finally declined to hear that argument. That
Department of Justice was like, they can stay in state court,
it's fine. So that argument is sort of dead in
the water. But they've already started with like their next
(29:10):
attempt to get these cases to the Supreme Court, and
it's this free speech argument that they've been making, which
basically says, look, anything we've ever said about climate change
was in the interest of shaping policy. That makes it
political speech or in like legal words, petitioning speech, and
(29:31):
therefore protected by the First Amendment. Now they're saying, in
these cases, our First Amendment argument is foundational to our arguments.
Therefore these can't be in state courts can't rule on
like key First Amendment issues. So I'm convinced that one
(29:52):
of these cases is going to be the next Citizens
United and this Supreme Court. That's very, very scary. You know,
they're talking about blurring the like they're basically saying, like,
lying can be free, can be protected if it's in
the interest of shaping policy. A particular way.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, it's fine. We're okay with lying if it's good
for us, which is you know, is enity whenever I'm
pulled over by the police, but probably probably oil and
gas company should be helped you so you can see.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
It's like bad, but like really for everything, very bad
if that gets said. Yeah, so yeah, they're doing that
at the same time that they're trying to limit individual
free speech. And I think that parallel is well a
not accidental but very very gross and disturbing.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, very much. Sure, Like I think it's interesting yet
that try like that. They very clearly see this Supreme
Court it's like the the one to go for, right,
not that it's going anywhere anytime soon. I guess didn't
Amy County parrots like like Dad wasn't a shell.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Yeah you word for Shepherd like twenty years.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
He sure did, of course, because yeah, there's a class
thing happening, and she.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Never accuses herself on any of these cases ever. Also, Elito,
I think it's Alito has stock in conicophillis, So that cool,
that's cool.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Clarence Thomas rig.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah, it was gifted to him by someone. Yeah statue, yeah, yeah,
so yeah, I think it's it's and and I mean
they they have said out loud in multiple places that
the whole push to criminalize protests was one hundred percent
(31:46):
of reaction to Standing Rock. Yeah, they were very freaked
out by that. I think they always have like a
an ozed reaction to anything that Indigenous people are doing. Period.
It's like that whole gross extra layer to it. And
then actually elsewhere too, like in in Canada this like
(32:13):
we're working with a reporter who's been looking into this
in Canada for a while. His name is Jeff Dembicky,
and he's found that there's the oil and gas companies
there like wrote down in strategies. I don't know why
these guys write this stuff down all the time, but
they wrote down, we're gonna make First Nations people the
(32:34):
face of climate protests because that'll make it vilified climate
protest in the press.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Wow. Yeah, Jesus Christ, sorry that one.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
So and the very similar thing there too, where it's
like increasing fines and jail time and you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
It's interesting. Yeah, it's like in the US anyway, like
if you look at the bleeding edge of Setler colonialism,
it's it's nearly always fossil fuel extraction, right, like if
like Oak Flat, the proposed extraction of lithium on tribal lands,
like a lot of these the nexus of like protest
(33:19):
and yeah, like colonialism will be these. I guess not
lithium is in a fossil fuel, but these extractive projects
on tribal land.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Yeah, yes, yes, which is why actually the the rights
of nature stuff is becoming really interesting in tribal courts. So,
I don't know you guys followed this, but like with
the Line three protests, the the tribe there, they they
(33:53):
actually filed a case against the Minnesota I don't know
department pulled works or something like that, and they they
were like, look, we have a in their case. It's
monomen the rights of monomen So monomen is. Oh god,
(34:14):
I just went out of my mind entirely. It's uh
wild rice. Sorry, okay. Monomen is the word is the
Indigenous word for wild rice, and they have rights for
this rice written into their tribal laws. And so they're saying, look,
based on our treaties, you are actually violating this law
(34:38):
and therefore we can we can take you to court
in tribal court to stop this pipeline. It didn't work
to stop Line three, but actually the case is still
making its way through the courts because the Minnesota DPW.
You tried to say, look, tible court has action over
us and the state court. It was like, a, yeah
(35:00):
they do actually, because treaties exist.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
So it's really interesting because now it's the same tribe
that is potentially impacted by Line five in Michigan and
they are looking at using the same argument, and it
could end up actually working there because there's now been
enough time that you know, it could it could make
its way to the courts and set a precedent. But anyway, Yeah,
(35:29):
it's really really really interesting.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, that's very that's really weirdly similar to the Kumii
people here in San Diego who are challenging the construction
or quote unquote repair, which is not what's happening at
the wool.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Yeah, that's what they all say about the pipelines too.
It's always repairing an old pipeline, but you look at
the plan and it's like that's a whole new ass pipeline. Yeah,
in a different place than it was before.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, they're repairing a three foot fence with
a thirty foot steel barrier. But yeah, they it cuts
directly through burial grounds here, and they're repairing it by
destroying the burial grounds, which again they they've opposed with
mixed results, I guess, but it's yeah, I guess if
folks are listening and they're interested, there are a lot
(36:19):
of places where they can they can help those struggles,
like different ways to do that, but that there might
be more effective here than going to the Supreme Court,
given the Supreme Court's composition.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I guess, exactly, yeah, exactly, that's why. Yeah, with the
the tribal court stuff, I think will be interesting to
watch in the next couple of years to see if
they're able to to do anything. But you know, tribal
solomnties all under attack by the Supreme.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, They're likelihood of resulting in like
indigenous nations getting ever more fucked by the it's equally
high as I could having.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Success, I guess.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah. Anyway, Sorry, I got really far afield there. The
counter protest uff is very very very much being driven
by oil and gas, and there's it just keeps going too.
I mean every year, there's like, you know, multiple more
of these laws being proposed and passed. I think we're
(37:25):
at twenty eights now have passed them, fourteen or fifteen
have actually implemented them.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
And.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah, it's not not great.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
No.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
I also think, like, you know, you're seeing the expansion
of the whole eco terrorist and really like come back
with a vengeance too. I feel like that was something
that happened in like early posts nine to eleven days
and is now happening again where it's it's like, I
don't know, let's expand the definition of rorism to include
(38:02):
environmental activists and then we can, you know, go after
them with those charges too. I haven't in cop City too, right.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yes, they are in the process, so still doing that. Yeah, great, well, Amy,
this is all really important you have I'm so we are.
This is a this is a real meeting of the
people who are fun at parties sit down and you
(38:36):
know that dissent has been criminalized.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I don't know, man, I guess I'll have a Manhattan
like what do you what do you want?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
The last party Robot and I attended together, we we
saw a car bomb happened.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So at least that we did see a car bomb happen.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, bring positive vibes.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
You're not talking about.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Monstrative car bomb, you know, Yeah, no, no, no, it
was an Irish car It would have gotten more people.
That's a little bit of a little bit of IRA
humor for the audience. Okay, we should.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Probably go, I'm making the next slash motion.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah all right, well, Amy, we thank you so much
for coming on today, and thank you for continuing to
put out a podcast that is keep that can, at
least if people, you know, listen, keep them very updated
on some of the most important climate related news going
(39:47):
on today and some of the real like fuckery being
carried out by the oil and gas industry. Again, the
podcast is Drilled. Season eight right now is about Exxon
in Guyana. Amy, you have anything else you wanted to
say before we we roll out?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
No, that's it. Thanks for having me. This was fun.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, thank you so much. Amy, really appreciate it. And
uh yeah, this has been Robert and James. We should
probably do something on the Thames at some point. James,
it'll rhyme. I know it's not pronounced that way. I know,
this was just me.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Let's do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
We could call it Robert and Jim's on the times.
You know, there we go.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Absolutely no.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Podcast is over.
Speaker 5 (40:35):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.