by Steve Coll
41. Interview with Major General Michael Snodgrass.
42. Lagos to Washington, September 19, 2008 (W).
43. Interview with an officer at Africa Command.
44. All quotations, author’s interviews with U.S. officials.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: “A PERSON WOULD HAVE TO EAT MORE THAN 3,400 RUBBER DUCKS”
1. ExxonMobil 10-K, 2007.
2. New York Times Magazine, December 9, 2001.
3. http://www.hcra.harvard.edu, examined and typed, January 30, 2011.
4. “Hazard Index”: ExxonMobil PowerPoint presentation. Interview with Paul Thacker (MR).
5. “Phthalates 101”: PowerPoint presentation left by ExxonMobil lobbyists with Capitol Hill offices, circa 2008. Also, ExxonMobil’s “Response to CPSC’s Request for Information,” January 12, 2009. The author is grateful for the outstanding work of Megha Rajagopalan, who obtained these and other materials, and conducted many of the background interviews cited.
6. To see the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Fact Sheet on phthalates, which contains links to its exposure studies, see http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/Phthalates_FactSheet.htm.
7. For an accessible but detailed review of scientific research into the health effects of phthalates in plastics, see the Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, “Phthalates in Plastics and Possible Human Health Effects,” updated July 29, 2008.
8. Memorandom to Michael A. Babich, Consumer Product Safety Commission, August 31, 1998.
9. “Phthalates 101,” op. cit.
10. “No risk reduction”: ExxonMobil, “Approach to Cumulative Risk,” op. cit. “Politics”: “Phthalates 101,” ibid.
11. Interview with a San Francisco regulator.
12. Interview with Gretchen Lee Salter (MR).
13. Interview with Virginia Lyons (MR). ‘They’re going to ban Gumby!”: Interview with Sarah Uhl, Clean Water Action, Hartford, Connecticut (MR).
14. Mattel recall: New York Times, August 2, 2007.
15. Interview with Liz Hitchcock (MR).
16. Halperin and Harris, The Way to Win, pp. 206–8.
17. Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2006. Also, interviews with individuals familiar with the 2005 energy legislation episode.
18. Interview with a conference participant.
19. “Six old white guys . . . not to budge”: All quotations from interviews with congressional staff involved.
20. Interview with Liz Hitchcock (MR).
21. Interview with Janet Nudelman (MR).
22. All quotations, interviews with participants.
23. All dates and contribution amounts from Federal Election Commission records.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: “WE MUST END THE AGE OF OIL”
1. Ann O’Hanlon invested extraordinary time and effort to analyze and collate Federal Election Commission records to document the insights about ExxonMobil’s political strategy relied upon in this chapter.
2. Interview with an ExxonMobil executive.
3. Interview with the consultant quoted, as well as interviews with other individuals familiar with ExxonMobil’s Washington strategies.
4. Interviews with individuals familiar with ExxonMobil’s Political Action Committee.
5. “Electing people”: From Citizen Action Team mailings provided by recipients, author’s files.
6. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, August 1, 2008.
7. National Public Radio, August 5, 2008, www.npr.org.
8. Interview with Jason Grumet.
9. “It’s not going to be easy”: Transcript of MSNBC Democratic debate, February 26, 2008. “Think about that . . . outrageous”: Associated Press, June 9, 2008.
10. “Oil company wish list”: Politics USA, July 31, 2008. “Is of economic significance”: Interview with Jason Grumet. “We must end the age of oil”: Barack Obama used this formulation on the campaign trail a number of times between the spring and summer of 2008. Among them: ABC News, August 5, 2008.
11. “We felt like a candidate”: Interview with an ExxonMobil executive. Maurice Hinchey: Newhouse Newspapers, February 26, 2008.
12. New York Times, July 19, 2008.
13. ABC News, August 13, 2008.
14. ExxonMobil’s effective corporate tax rate of 47 percent in 2009 was among the highest among large corporations.
15. Third presidential debate, New York Times, October 15, 2008.
16. All quotations, interviews with Bennett Freeman.
17. Interviews with individuals familiar with ExxonMobil’s deliberations. Tillerson said later: Rex Tillerson’s remarks at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, January 8, 2009.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: “ARE WE OUT? OR IN?”
1. The portrait of Anton Smith is drawn from interviews with diplomats, nonprofit activists, human rights activists, business representatives, government officials, and other individuals in Equatorial Guinea and the United States. His views are also contained in the series of analytical cables Smith composed early in 2009.
2. U.S. companies invested $13 billion: Malabo to Washington, February 27, 2009.
3. “Torture Is Rife . . .”: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=28998&Cr=torture&Cr1=rapporteur.
4. Interviews with people familiar with Anton Smith’s tour in Malabo, op. cit.
5. All quotations are from the linked series of cables, Malabo to Washington, February 27, 2009; March 3, 2009; March 10, 2009; March 12, 2009; March 30, 2009; and May 21, 2009.
6. Wald meeting, “Shared responsibility”: Washington to Yaounde, June 24, 2005. Cindy Courville, “because of market forces”: Yaounde to Washington, March 29, 2006. “our best ally”: Malabo to Washington, November 23, 2006. “lengthy and effusive”: Youande to Washington, October 6, 2006. These cables were released to the author in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
7. All quotations, interview with Francisco Nugua.
8. Interviews with Africans and other sources familiar with Israel’s defense consulting in the region. Israeli aid to the Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta is described in Lagos to Washington, February 23, 2009 (W).
9. Interview with an adviser to Equatorial Guinea familiar with the meetings.
10. Interviews with several advisers to Equatorial Guinea and other individuals familiar with the Israeli arrangements.
11. Ibid.
12. Interviews with individuals familiar with Equatorial Guinea’s Washington strategy. Check for $4 million: Yaounde to Washington, February 22, 2006.
13. Background to the meeting, negotiations about visibility: Interviews with people familiar with Equatorial Guinea’s Washington strategy. All quotations from the private meeting with Condoleezza Rice: Washington to Yaounde, April 18, 2006.
14. Spokesmen for Marathon and Hess declined comment.
15. ExxonMobil Corp. Regional Oil Spill Response Plan—Offshore Operations, Appendix K, “Media,” p. K-34.
16. Simeon L. Moats, ExxonMobil Corporation, “Business Practices & Transparency,” PowerPoint presentation, September 28, 2006.
17. Interview with an ExxonMobil executive.
18. Ibid.
19. Teodoro Obiang Nguema acknowledged forty-two children: Malabo to Washington, March 10, 2009. Field of Dreams, Gabriel Obiang’s development plans: Interviews with individuals familiar with Gabriel’s statements and thinking.
20. Global Witness, “Undue Diligence: How Banks Do Business with Corrupt Regimes,” March 2009. United States Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: “Keeping Foreign Corruption Out of the United States, Four Case Histories,” Majority and Minority Staff Report, February 4, 2010.
21. Interview with a lawyer who worked with Teodoro Obiang.
22. Lily Panayotti v. Sweetwater Management, Inc., Los Angeles County Superior Court, West District, SC-099588. Veronique Guillem v. Sweetwater Management, Inc., Los Angeles County Superior Court, West District, SC-104
747. Dragan Deletic v. Sweetwater Management, Inc. Los Angeles County Superior Court, West District, SC-104745.
23. All quotations from, “Keeping Foreign Corruption Out,” op. cit.
24. This account is drawn primarily from interviews with individuals familiar with the February 17 attack. Also, BBC reporting on the events, February 17 through February 24, 2009.
25. Interview with an ExxonMobil executive.
26. Human Rights Watch, “Well Oiled: Oil and Human Rights in Equatorial Guinea,” July 9, 2009.
27. Letter from Ken Cohen to Human Rights Watch, May 4, 2009, attached as an appendix to “Well Oiled,” ibid.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: “IT’S NOT MY MONEY TO TITHE”
1. All of Tillerson’s quotations are from his remarks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, January 8, 2009, recorded and transcribed.
2. ExxonMobil’s review after 2006: Interviews with executives involved. Task Force: Interview with Elaine Kamarck (AO).
3. “We had determined . . . baggage”: Interview with an ExxonMobil executive.
4. All Tillerson quotations from the Woodrow Wilson Center appearance, op. cit.
5. Interview with Carol Browner.
6. Ibid., and interviews with other Obama advisers involved. Abu Dhabi to Washington, April 13, 2009 (W).
7. Remarks by Rex Tillerson at Ford’s Theatre, February 11, 2009, recorded and transcribed.
8. Ibid.
9. “Why wouldn’t the administration want”: Interview with an ExxonMobil executive. “He was just shopping the idea”: Interview with a participant in the meeting.
10. Interview with a former Bush administration official involved in the transition briefings.
11. Canadian exports to the United States, Alberta reserve estimates cited by Oil & Gas Journal: From the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
12. For an excellent account of the issues and manufacturing processes involving sands oil, see Robert Kunzig, “Scraping Bottom,” National Geographic, March 2009.
13. “Produce as much of this oil as you can,” the map of North America prepared for Barack Obama: Interview with a Canadian official involved.
14. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, February 17, 2009.
15. “The Canadian Oil Sands: Energy Security vs. Climate Change,” Council on Foreign Relations Special Report No. 47, May 2009.
16. Interview with an industry lobbyist.
17. “don’t want B.S.”: Interview with an ExxonMobil executive.
18. Interview with a House staff member involved with energy legislation.
19. Interviews with multiple participants at the White Oak conference. Tony Kreindler and Sherri Stuewer: Interview with Tony Kreindler (AO). ExxonMobil did not respond to requests for comment.
20. Presentations by Walter McKibbin, Adele Morris, and Peter Wilcoxen, “The Economic Impact of Climate Change Reduction Strategies,” Brookings Institution, June 8, 2009.
21. Hart Research Associates, “Energy and Climate Change Policy: A Survey Among American Voters Conducted September 2009 for U.S. Climate Task Force,” slide deck obtained by the author.
22. Scene and all quotations, Clinton Global Initiative, September 23, 2009.
23. Scene and quotation, Economic Club of Washington, October 1, 2009.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: “WE’RE CONFIDENT YOU CAN BOOK THE RESERVES”
1. The 2004 Iraq Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Fund appropriated by Congress provided $4 billion over three years to repair Iraq’s oil and electricity infrastructure following the looting that occurred during the U.S.-led invasion. The amount was not nearly enough to account for the decay in Iraq’s oil industry during Saddam Hussein’s rule, but it was intended, a U.S. General Accounting Office official said in an interview, to “jump-start” the industry’s reconstruction.
2. Interview with an American official involved. The account of the Al-Rashid auction and Richard Vierbuchen’s role is from interviews with ExxonMobil executives, State Department and White House officials involved with Iraq oil policy during the Bush administration and the Obama administration, and contemporary news coverage of the auction. For the auction scene in the Al-Rashid ballroom, see ReutersVideo, June 29, 2009, among other sources: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pBjh1iOnss.
3. Interview with an American official who was present at the meeting and who recorded the minister’s comments in handwritten notes. Muttitt, Fuel on the Fire, p. 214, quotes from minutes obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request.
4. Author’s interview.
5. The account of American oil policy after the invasion is drawn in part from extensive interviews with five American officials who worked on Iraqi oil policy at the Coalition Provisional Authority and its successors in Baghdad, as well as diaries and contemporary records describing their work.
6. All quotations, author’s interviews.
7. “Transformative” Program: Baghdad to Washington, August 26, 2009 (W).
8. Bearing Point report: “Options for Developing a Long Term Sustainable Iraqi Oil Industry.” Sector study presented to U.S.A.I.D., December 19, 2003. Quotations from interviews with an American official involved.
9. Interview with Philip J. Carroll.
10. Chevron: From contemporaneous records provided to the author. Norm Szydlowski: Author’s interview.
11. Interview with Rob McKee.
12. Interview with Ashti A. Hawrami, K.R.G. minister of natural resources. “Oil and Gas Rights of Regions and Governorates,” June 12, 2006, Kurdish Regional Government Web site: http://www.krg.org/articles/detail.asp?smap=02010100&lngnr=12&asnr=&anr=18704&rnr=223.
13. Interviews with an American official involved.
14. “We do not seek advice”: E-mail from Jeanne Phillips to Ben Lando, October 11, 2007. Also, e-mail from Hunt executive David McDonald after a meeting with State Department officials, cited by Senator Carl Levin in a letter to Bush administration national security adviser Stephen Hadley, quotes McDonald as concluding that the Bush administration had “no policy, neither for nor against.” George W. Bush: CBS News, June 26, 2009.
15. The New York Times and the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv first reported on Peter Galbraith’s Kurdish oil holdings in 2009. “I should have stated”: “A Statement by Peter W. Galbraith,” New York Review of Books, January 14, 2010.
16. Interview with an American official who worked with Meghan O’Sullivan during her Hess consultancy. Also, O’Sullivan’s published online biography at Harvard University.
17. Baghdad to Washington, June 30, 2009 (W).
18. All quotations, notes from background briefings provided by ExxonMobil executives in Washington, D.C., obtained by the author.
19. Baghdad to Washington, August 26, 2009 (W).
20. Deutsche Bank: Muttitt, op. cit., p. 326. Also, Baghdad to Washington, November 15, 2009 and January 5, 2010 (W). Agreement details, crossed threshold: Interviews with State Department officials who have worked with ExxonMobil on its Iraq investments, background briefings by ExxonMobil executives, and materials published for investors by ExxonMobil.
21. Rob Franklin: “Exxon Exec Optimistic in Iraq Entry,” Iraq Oil Report, February 4, 2010.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: “ONE PLUS ONE HAS GOT TO EQUAL THREE”
1. Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 2, 2006, and December 15, 2009.
2. Interview with Jack Randall.
3. Ibid., as well as disclosures made by both corporations to the Securities and Exchange Commission about their negotiations, Form S-4, ExxonMobil Corporation, February 1, 2010.
4. Form S-4, ibid., p. 96.
5. Interview with Jack Randall, Form S-4, ibid., pp. 39–49. Also, TendersInfo, December 16, 2009.
6. Rex Tillerson’s testimony to Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, House Energy and Commerce Committee, January 20, 2010.
7. Interview with Jack Randall.
8. Ibid.
9. TendersInfo, op. cit.
&nbs
p; 10. Interviews with industry executives and researchers.
11. “Meeting Gas Supply and Demand in a Deregulated Environment,” PowerPoint presentation, Gas Technology Institute.
12. Alan Greenspan’s testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, June 10, 2003.
13. Transcript from ExxonMobil’s Analyst Meeting, March 9, 2011.
