Retired Mobil Oil executive Lou Allstadt has written an open letter to Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, copy here and below.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/
Watch Lou discuss his message with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Thursday 8 PM.
Open Letter to Rex Tillerson
Chairman, ExxonMobil
Dear Rex,
We have never met, but I worked for your company for six months immediately after the ExxonMobil merger, the implementation of which I coordinated from the Mobil side. That was after thirty years with Mobil Oil Corporation, where just prior to the merger I had been an Executive Vice President and Operating Officer for Exploration and Producing in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. I now live in upstate New York. For the past five years, I have been actively trying to keep your company and the rest of the industry from fracking here. I understand from several press articles that you have fracking issues of your own, with a fracking water tower and truck traffic possibly detracting from your view and the value of your home.
In response to the prospect of fracking ruining our communities, many New York towns have passed zoning laws that prohibit heavy industry, including any activities associated with drilling for oil and gas. Those laws, along with very little prospect for economic gas production in New York, mean that we probably will not have to look at fracking water towers, let alone live next to fracking well pads. I say probably, because your industry is still fighting those zoning laws in the courts.
Ironically, your reasoning at the Bartonville, Texas town council meetings is virtually identical to the reasoning that I and many other citizens used to convince our local town councils to pass laws that prohibit the very problem you have encountered, plus all of the other infrastructure and waste disposal issues associated with fracking.
No one should have to live near well pads, compression stations, incessant heavy truck traffic, or fracking water towers, nor should they have their water or air contaminated. You and I love the places where we live, but in the end, if they are ruined by fracking or frack water tanks, we can afford to pack up and go someplace else. However, many people can’t afford to move away when they can no longer drink the water or breathe the air because they are too close to one of your well pads or compressor stations.
My efforts to prevent fracking started over water — not the prospect of having to see a water tank from my home, but rather regulations that would allow gas wells near our sources of drinking water, in addition to well pads next to our homes, schools, hospitals and nursing homes. These issues are legitimate, but they are localized. I am now much more concerned with the greenhouse gas impacts of fossil fuels in general, and particularly the huge impact of methane emissions from natural gas production and transportation. These are global problems that local zoning cannot protect against. Only a major shift toward renewable energy sources can begin to mitigate their catastrophic climate impacts.
Before closing, I should explain why I have referred to ExxonMobil as “your company.” For several years after retiring I thought of ExxonMobil as “my company.” I thought that the company’s rigor and discipline in investing in sound projects was as good as it gets, and ExxonMobil was my largest single investment. I no longer own any shares of ExxonMobil or any other fossil fuel company. I would prefer to be an early investor in alternative energy for the 21st century rather than hanging on to dwindling prospects for investments in 19th and 20th century fossil fuels.
It is time that ExxonMobil started shifting away from oil and gas, and toward alternatives — both for environmental reasons and to protect the long-term viability of the company. Many large energy producers and consumers, including ExxonMobil, are building a carbon fee into their long-term planning assumptions. Actively supporting the phase-in of a carbon fee would be one way to move the company into the 21st century. Recognizing that methane emissions disqualify natural gas as a “bridge fuel” is another.
Good luck with that fracking water tank. I hope you don’t have to move, and also that you will help a lot of other people stay in the homes they love.
Regards,
Lou Allstadt
Links to some reports on Mr. Tillerson’s fight against a fracking water tower near his home in Texas:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304899704579391181466603804
http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2014/02/exxon-ceo-involved-in-lawsuit-citing-fracking-concerns.html/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/22/exxon-mobil-tillerson-ceo-fracking/5726603/
- NIMBY Rex: “Not in my Frack Yard !”
Great letter of understanding and compassion for one’s fellow humans, Lou…thanks, so much for sharing your position on this vital issue.
Nicely written.
My experience with oil and gas corporations, from an environmental services perspective, is they’ll play nice, if the rules of the game are understood. Some of the geologists and engineers I went to school with had oil pulsing through their veins. Many of those folks grew up in areas, where there was nothing other than oil and gas production. Texas panhandle is an example. Lake Charles, LA is another. Saudi Arabia is an excellent example, but that may not count. Those guys were all in the family business. And a big family at that.
I believe a general interest in environmental protection stems from where one grew up. For instance, a person who grows up in an area, where mother nature provides water and high soil quality, has a different perspective towards environmental protection than a person who grew up in an area, where man engineered everything to make it habitable. (that sentence may have run on, my period key is stuck) Highly engineered habitats could pertain to a city or some place very dry, with horrible soil.
It seems like Rex Tillerson is well removed from his engineering days at UT Austin, both socially and economically. He’s been hanging out with too many Wall Street hedge funders, PR executives and corporate lawyers for way too long. Complaining about an industrial thing going up next to your horse farm is so suburban NYC Junior League. I wonder if he had to hold Mrs. Tillerson’s purse at the public meeting? Or clutch her pearls? A real oilman lives above the shop.
Michael–I agree that growing up in a highly engineered environment may make it more difficult to appreciate the natural environment, and I worry about the fact that a lot of kids today spend very little time outside whether they live in the cities or the suburbs or even in a rural setting. On the other hand, I certainly know quite a few people who grew up in cities but who are good environmentalists and I also know some people who grew up in rural settings who cannot wait to frack those settings.
I think a key factor in one’s attitude is a willingness/ability to weigh the wider consequences of one’s actions. This would include an ability to think beyond one’s immediate surroundings and also an ability to empathize with others. So I guess what I’m saying is that to be a good environmentalist, one needs both a certain amount of environmental awareness and also a conscience. Those who do not mind trashing other people’s homes and water and air because they are wealthy enough to buy themselves a safe haven have character flaws that go beyond a lack of environmental awareness.
Well said Mary. I’m big on making hyper sweeping generalizations and seat-of-the-pants presumptions. Especially when it comes to human behavior. Maybe we can blame mothers. If a mother picked up after her child, there’s a good chance it grows up to become a climate change addressing obfuscator and wild-eyed Dick Cheney-esque pro hydraulic fracker. Assuming of course those issues don’t impact the grown child’s Texas landed gentry estate. However, should impact occur, the tiger mother/mother-in-law can helicopter in to address her child’s concerns. Wendi Deng-Murdoch style. I believe I just pissed off at least half the internet.
The Ostrich
As a species I sometimes wonder if we most resemble the ostrich. If we duck our heads, ignore the problem for long enough, it will just, maybe, hopefully, please, go away. Or perhaps our approach is more like Bill Clinton’s solution to gays in the military – don’t ask, don’t tell! After all, if nobody talks about it, it isn’t there, is it?
My brother-in-law, a house painter and his friend, who is working in the Alberta oil patch sum it up this way: “it’s been about 150 years since the Industrial Revolution and we’ve done this much damage to the environment. We might get another 100 years out of it all.”
At a church luncheon, a fellow parishioner relates to me his experience of reading about the poisoning of the St Clare River at Sarnia. “I was there the night the company put that stuff in the ground and supposedly sealed it off.” There was pain in his eyes and no doubt, in his heart and in his soul. I stated that it was amazing how many people I speak with, ordinary people, blue collar workers, who understand that we are gradually destroying the planet. He casually observed, “there will be a revolution.”
It’s hardly unlikely that for some inexplicable reason, I am the only guy who has these conversations. It is more likely that most of us see the truth for what it is. We are gradually, speeding up, speeding up, speeding up, destroying the very planet that gives us life. Suicide or madness? Take your pick, I can’t figure it out.
I wonder who our political leaders talk to? Do they have these conversations or are they shielded for their own protection? They don’t appear to be losing much sleep about it all as the oil companies drill away, as the auto manufacturers continue to turn out the gas combustion engine, as poisons are released into our rivers, lakes, oceans, landfills – anywhere the millions upon millions of barrels of poisonous waste can be hidden for awhile. Long enough, they hope, to finish making the money, packing up and leaving the deadly stuff behind. Perhaps, like Chernoble, the animals will have another paradise, free of humans, in a future that may be as inevitable as the prediction of my house painter friend – a hundred years or so.
Is it possible to change a future that is rushing towards us virtually unhindered except for sporadic demonstrations and vocal minorities who are often perceived as “radical”, “inhibiting progress”, “tree-huggers”, “terrorists”, “trouble – makers”, etc? Most days are like today – I simply have no idea whether we have the rational or empathetic ability to slow down, stop and possibly reverse the race to the “end of the human race.”
Joe Wiseman
Citizen
Joe Wiseman…Your name suits you well.
Lou Allstadt…Speaking truth to power is important…Truth being spoken by power to power is critical. Thank you so much!
Well and wisely said, Joe:
I believe it’s both: suicide and madness !
we need a People’s Revolution especially joined in by the Powers that Be and People of Influence and Affluence
and stop the madness !
Thank you, Lou Allstadt, for writing this great letter!
Wonderful letter. Thanks Lou, for this, and all the great work you are doing to get the word out.