From InsideClimate News (David Hasemyer):
The lengthening list of Americans calling for more investigations of ExxonMobil Corp.’s behavior on climate change includes members of Congress, three presidential candidates, dozens of climate scientists and Glenda Poliner, a San Diego grandmother.
She was one of almost 9,000 people who signed a petition calling on California Attorney General Kamala Harris to investigate whether Exxon misled the public on global warming. Poliner, a schoolteacher who says she has a second grandchild on the way, included a note to Harris, a Democrat.
“I almost told my daughter to not have children because they would be facing a steadily deteriorating world because of the actions of companies such as ExxonMobil,” she said in the note. “These companies must be held accountable for their misdeeds. Please continue to do everything in your power to reverse this devastation.”
From the halls of Congress to the campaign trail to households across the nation, there is a roiling call for federal and state prosecutors to probe what Exxon knew about climate change and whether it broke consumer and shareholder protection laws in what it communicated to the public. Petitions and other public demands for investigations follow the publication of investigative stories by InsideClimate News and other news organizations that showed Exxon was at the forefront of global warming research decades ago until it launched campaigns to cast doubt on climate science and delay action.
Exxon is already the target of a probe by the state attorney general in New York, though the inquiry was opened months before the nationwide clamor for action began. Investigators for Democratic Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed Exxon records last month spanning four decades of research findings and communications about climate change.
“We’re not just shouting this into the wind,” said R.L. Miller, president of the political advocacy group Climate Hawks Vote. Her organization called on U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and California’s Harris to open probes into Exxon.
