Law Wars
Sometimes the empire strikes back.
“You come at the king, you best not miss.” – Omar Little, The Wire
Buried within ExxonMobil’s massive Baytown refinery and petrochemical complex sits a development facility that is validating an advanced solution to the vexing problem of plastic recycling. Each day, hundreds of thousands of pounds of discarded material are heated to high temperatures in the absence of oxygen—a method known as pyrolysis – which transforms trash into valuable hydrocarbons. The resulting materials can be mixed with traditional refinery inputs to yield products like diesel. Things must be going well because the company recently announced a $200 million investment to bring Baytown’s recycling capacity to 500 million pounds a year. It plans to double that number by 2027.
Longtime readers of Doomberg might remember that we wrote about a similar effort taking place at Chevron back in October of 2023. In an article titled “Spilled Milk,” we chronicled how the company was facing fierce opposition from radical environmental groups that were going all out to defame Chevron and its innovative process, claiming it would radically increase cancer risk in the communities surrounding its test facility. We characterized the tactics as “ugly and preposterously unscientific, rising to a new and jarring level of vitriol.” We also noted that various media outlets were more than happy to transmit these deceptions to the general public, causing the company significant reputational damage:
“These accusations are knowing lies, but the defamation of Chevron has had the desired effect. The Pascagoula community was understandably alarmed, and Chevron was forced to post a Fact Sheet to its website clarifying the situation. In a just world, Chevron would be able to sue ProPublica and The Guardian for slander, but instead, it is the environmental groups doing the suing.”
Fast-forward to late 2024 when California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a man who has made no secret of his ambition to replace Governor Gavin Newsom when his term expires, took the attack against these advanced recycling technologies to a new level. With much self-created fanfare, Bonta sued ExxonMobil on the flimsy grounds that promoting its plastics as “recyclable” was deceptive because most plastics aren’t ultimately recycled, as though the company has agency over the myriad downstream firms that sit between it and the consumer, let alone over the consumer directly. It also alleged that Exxon’s advanced recycling operation was tantamount to fraud. The official press release announcing the state’s lawsuit was published alongside a similar suit filed by a group of environmental organizations:
“California Attorney General Rob Bonta today announced the filing of a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for allegedly engaging in a decades-long campaign of deception that caused and exacerbated the global plastics pollution crisis. In a complaint filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court, the Department of Justice alleges that ExxonMobil has been deceiving Californians for half a century through misleading public statements and slick marketing promising that recycling would address the ever-increasing amount of plastic waste ExxonMobil produces…
More recently, ExxonMobil continues to deceive the public by touting ‘advanced recycling’ as the solution to the plastic waste and pollution crisis. ‘Advanced recycling’ (also known as ‘chemical recycling’) is an umbrella term used by the plastics industry to describe a variety of heat or solvent-based technologies that can theoretically convert certain types of plastic waste into petrochemical feedstock, which can be used to make new plastic… ExxonMobil’s ‘advanced recycling’ program is nothing more than a public relations stunt meant to encourage the public to keep purchasing single-use plastics that are fueling the plastics pollution crisis.”
In various media appearances touting his new lawsuit and through his personal social media channels, Bonta has used inflammatory language to describe Exxon and its advanced recycling investments, labeling the former as “liars” and the latter as “a myth,” “a sham,” and even “illegal.” We suspect he may soon regret it.
In early January, Exxon sued Bonta personally, along with five environmental groups, accusing the defendants of disparagement, defamation, tortious interference, and civil conspiracy. We got our hands on the full complaint, and the claims expose the nexus between foreign money, the plaintiff’s bar, the environmental lobby, and the politicians who do their bidding. Let’s delve into the mire.