Petroleum Industry

Challenging Corporate Greenwashing

Large corporations like to tout their environmental initiatives. The problem is that their claims are often exaggerated, misleading or completely unfounded. And rarely are they called to account for their deception.

Recently, there have been two exceptions to the rule, involving the petroleum industry, which has long been one of the most brazen practitioners of greenwashing. California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the filing of a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, alleging that it engaged in what the AG called “a decades-long campaign of deception that caused and exacerbated the global plastics pollution crisis.”

Bonta accused Exxon Mobil, a leading producer of the polymers used to produce single-use plastics, of employing “misleading public statements and slick marketing” to promote the idea that recycling is an adequate way to deal with the plastics pollution crisis.

The lawsuit, which seeks to get Exxon Mobil to cease making misleading statements and pay damages, bears a resemblance to previous actions against the corporation for its long history of denying the reality of the climate crisis and the major role the oil industry has played in exacerbating global warming.

Over in South Africa, another oil giant, France’s TotalEnergies, was recently found to have made misleading statements about its commitment to sustainable development. The Advertising Regulatory Board, acting on a complaint brought by the environmental group Fossil Free South Africa, based its ruling on the simple fact that the petroleum company’s core business is antithetical to sustainability.

The advertising board could also have looked at the environmental record of TotalEnergies. As shown in Violation Tracker, the company has paid more than $60 million in environmental penalties in the United States. It also paid $15 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by knowingly underpaying royalties owed on natural gas produced from federal and Indian leases. And it paid nearly $400 million to settle foreign bribery allegations.

As will soon be shown in Violation Tracker Global, TotalEnergies has also had regulatory challenges in other countries. For example, in 2010 a French appeals court upheld a 200 million euro judgment against the company in connection with a large oil spill by the tanker Erika off the coast of Brittany.

Of course, Exxon Mobil also has a checkered compliance record. Violation Tracker records more than $2 billion in environmental penalties in the U.S since 2000. That total would have been considerably larger if the Supreme Court had not slashed a multi-billion-dollar damage award stemming from the giant oil spill by the company’s Valdez supertanker off the coast of Alaska. Violation Tracker Global will contain $3 million in environmental penalties in other countries, especially Canada.

Supreme Court rulings such as the Citizens United case emboldened corporations to assert their free speech rights. Yet when that speech denies scientific reality and contributes to environmental devastation, society needs to respond. California’s lawsuit will not solve the plastics crisis, but it will help to make the case that Exxon Mobil is part of the problem rather than the solution.

Note: Violation Tracker Global will be launched in October

Greenpeace Slaps Back

Asked to define the phrase Energy Transfer, most people would say it sounds like something they dimly recall from high school physics. Actually, it is the name of a giant corporation that owns the country’s largest petroleum transportation system, including the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which was the focus of intense protests in 2016.

Energy Transfer and DAPL are back in the news because a trial is set to begin in the latest phase of the company’s legal assault against opponents of the pipeline. Despite the protests led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other indigenous groups, the pipeline was completed and went into operation in 2017. That was in large part due to the intervention of the Trump Administration in one of its first acts. Energy Transfer CEO Kelcy Warren was a big contributor to Trump during the 2016 presidential race. This year he gave $5 million to a pro-Trump Super PAC.

Although it won the battle to build DAPL, Energy Transfer has been on a crusade against its adversaries. Initially, it targeted Standing Rock Sioux chairman Dave Archambault and other tribal leaders at the center of the protests. When that failed, it went after Greenpeace and has not relented. In doing so, it has mounted one of the most aggressive examples of what are known as SLAPP suits (strategic lawsuits against public participation)—legal actions meant to intimidate anti-corporate protests.

In 2017 Energy Transfer filed a federal racketeering suit against Greenpeace that made extravagant allegations that tried to depict the group’s legitimate criticisms of the company and DAPL as a violent criminal conspiracy. The complaint accused Greenpeace of “manufacturing a media spectacle based upon phony but emotionally charged hot-button issues, sensational lies, and intentionally incited physical violence, property destruction, and other criminal conduct.”

Greenpeace vehemently denied advocating or engaging in any violent acts, while also insisting it did not organize the protests but was simply supporting a campaign led by tribal groups. A federal judge threw out the racketeering case, but Energy Transfer has continued to pursue the matter at the state level and is seeking $300 million in damages.

The North Dakota complaint filed in 2019 employs much of the same overheated rhetoric as the unsuccessful federal action. It accuses Greenpeace and several co-defendants of pursuing an “extremist agenda — to attack and disrupt Energy Transfer’s business and its construction of DAPL — through means far outside the bounds of democratic political action, protest, and peaceful, legally protected expression of dissent.”

Yet the company focuses a great deal on such expressions of dissent, alleging that the defendants “engaged in large-scale, intentional dissemination of misinformation and outright falsehoods regarding Energy Transfer, DAPL’s environmental impact, and Energy Transfer’s extensive efforts to address the concerns of local North Dakota communities.”

It is language such as this that prompts Greenpeace to argue that the case represents a serious threat to First Amendment rights. If Energy Transfer is successful in pushing the idea that those criticizing its actions are guilty of defamation, that would indeed have a chilling effect on corporate accountability activism.

As Greenpeace points out, there is a lot to criticize about Energy Transfer even apart from DAPL. In Violation Tracker we document 383 instances since 2000 in which the company and its subsidiaries were fined or reached settlements in cases involving environmental, safety or other infractions. The associated penalties amount to $611 million.

Five of these cases were brought as criminal matters. These include a 2022 case brought by then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro in which two Energy Transfer subsidiaries pleaded no contest to criminal water pollution charges relating to the release of large quantities of drilling fluids containing potentially hazardous substances in places where it could contaminate drinking water supplies. AG Shapiro stated that in bringing the case his office was “holding Energy Transfer accountable for their crimes against our natural resources.”

It is unclear whether Energy Transfer really believes the lawsuit will silence its critics. For its part, Greenpeace shows no sign of being intimidated and is defending itself forcefully, which is in keeping with its long track record of standing up to the powerful. Energy Transfer may have SLAPPed, but Greenpeace is slapping back.

For more details on the lawsuit, see this website just launched by Greenpeace.

Corporations Are Not Saving the Planet After All

It used to be that you had to go to the websites of groups such as Greenpeace to learn how large corporations are failing to live up to their promises to help solve the climate crisis. Now that fact can be found on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

The business-friendly newspaper just published an article detailing the ways in which the decarbonization efforts of the world’s largest companies are fizzling out. A big part of the problem is that most companies never developed meaningful climate transition plans and instead relied on dubious carbon offsets instead. The Journal quotes the environmental non-profit CDP as saying that of the nearly 19,000 companies using its disclosure platform, fewer than 100 have credible plans.

Some companies don’t bother to develop any plans—or they keep them to themselves. The Journal cites data showing the percentages of larger publicly traded companies that do not disclose specific plans to meet long-term climate targets. Among those in the coal, oilfield services, and midstream oil sectors the portion is 100 percent. Among integrated oil companies, 93 percent fail to do so.

Big Oil’s detrimental role in dealing with the climate was highlighted in another recent Journal article. It’s well known that Exxon Mobil worked for years to downplay the harmful effects of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2006 the company finally acknowledged those dangers, but the Journal found that within the company the policy did not really change. The newspaper was given access to internal company documents that had been collected by the New York Attorney General but never made public.

These documents, the Journal says, show that Rex Tillerson, who had just taken over as CEO at the time, continued to work behind the scenes to play down the severity of climate change. Exxon executives and scientists were apparently encouraged to go on questioning the mainstream consensus on climate harm.

In other words, it appeared that Exxon, rather than fully abandoning its overt climate denialism, replaced it with a more low-key version while simultaneously reaping the benefits of greenwashing.

Apart from its malignant impact on the climate problem, the fossil fuel industry also continues to be a major source of conventional pollution. We are reminded of this fact by a new report from the Center for American Progress which looks at the long-standing boondoggle surrounding the system by which the industry is allowed to drill on public lands and offshore.

Making extensive use of data from Violation Tracker, the report shows that the top 20 leasing companies are responsible for more than 2,000 environmental violations in their overall operations over the past two decades. Exxon Mobil leads the list with 442 such penalties, while BP has paid out the most—over $30 billion—largely due to its role in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

CAP’s report recommends that proposed new standards issued by the federal Bureau of Land Management for companies seeking leases be strengthened to include language specifying what defines a bad actor, adding: “Such bad actors should not be eligible for new leases or permits until they have resolved all outstanding issues and demonstrated that they are capable of changing their practices. Further, leases of companies found not to be a qualified or responsible lessee should be subject to cancellation.”

Tougher standards such as these will help to get the message through to the fossil fuel giants that they need to change their ways once and for all.

Fronting for Rogue Corporations

Only days before the world gathers in Glasgow to discuss the climate crisis, Greenpeace has leaked a trove of documents suggesting that some countries are coming to that gathering with sinister motives. According to the environmental group, several leading coal, oil, beef and animal feed-producing nations are trying to water down the International Panel on Climate Change’s findings to protect their domestic industries.

Among the countries said to be involved are Saudi Arabia, Australia and Brazil. It seems clear these efforts reflect not only the inclinations of their political leaders but also the interests of major corporations headquartered in those nations.

Saudi Arabia is, of course, the home to the Saudi Aramco—one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers and thus one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Australia is the home to mining companies such as BHP Group, the world’s largest producer of coal. Brazil is the headquarters of meat-producing giant JBS.

Along with their outsized role in CO2 emissions, these companies damage the environment in other ways and have run afoul of regulatory requirements. Take the case of Saudi Aramco. As documented in Violation Tracker, its U.S. subsidiary Motiva Enterprises has racked up more than $170 million in penalties over the past two decades for violations of the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws. In addition to cases brought by the EPA, Motiva has been the target of lawsuits and enforcement actions by attorneys general and environmental regulatory agencies in states such as Texas and Louisiana.

In its U.S. operations, BHP has been cited for violations both by the EPA and by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the federal agency that oversees offshore oil and gas drilling. It has also paid fines to environmental agencies in Louisiana and Arkansas.

JBS, which has taken over several major beef and poultry producers in the United States, has been cited 59 times for environmental violations, paying a total of $5.6 million in penalties. Earlier this year, its Pilgrim’s Pride poultry subsidiary pleaded guilty and was been sentenced to pay approximately $107 million in criminal fines for its participation in a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chicken products.

JBS will also show up in Violation Tracker UK, which will be launched next week. Its Moy Park Limited subsidiary has been fined over £1.2 million since 2010, most of which came from workplace safety violations but also included £82,000 in nine environmental cases.

These examples suggest that the behind-the-scenes efforts of Saudi Arabia, Australia and Brazil are not just a matter of differences in climate policy. By resisting stronger controls on greenhouse gas emissions, these countries are serving the interests of corporations that repeatedly violate environmental regulations and other laws that serve the public good.

Note: Violation Tracker UK will go public on October 26. It will contain information on more than 60,000 cases brought by over 40 UK regulators such as the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive. The database aggregates cases linked to more than 650 parent corporations based in the UK and over 30 other countries.

Oil Giants Pressed for Changes Instead of Promises

A substantial number of large corporations would have us believe they are in the forefront of the efforts to address issues such as climate change, inequality and racial injustice. They brag about their commitment to corporate social responsibility and claim to be devoted to high-minded ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles in their operations.

There are two big reasons to be skeptical about this self-congratulatory stance. The first is that Big Business is often the cause of those problems, not the solution. The second is that the remedial measures companies claim to be taking often turn out to be illusory.

Two recent developments suggest that that corporations may be unable to go on running these cons. In an unprecedented ruling, a court in the Netherlands ordered petroleum giant Royal Dutch Shell to cut its carbon dioxide emissions sharply to align with the Paris agreement on climate change. This was said to be the first time a company faced a legal mandate of this kind. What made the decision even more significant is that Shell was held responsible not only for its own emissions but also those of its supply chain. This suit, brought by environmental groups, was a legal breakthrough for the climate movement.

Yet, the ruling was also consequential in that it challenges the notion that corporations should be allowed to make their own decisions on how to address environmental and social goals. And in that sense it rocks the foundations of ESG, which is built on the idea of voluntary measures. Companies have gotten a great deal of mileage out of making claims about what they have done or plan to do. Many of these statements cannot be verified, and there is no enforcement mechanism for holding corporations to their promises.

Much of what goes by the name of corporate social responsibility is a method of warding off more stringent government regulation by claiming that the private sector can address the issues on its own.

Shell is a prime example of a company that says one thing and does another. On its website, the company claims that its commitment to sustainability dates back to 1997 and that it works “to embed this sustainability commitment into our strategy, our business processes and decision-making.”

Yet during this same quarter-century, Shell has been embroiled in an ongoing controversy over its practices in Nigeria. Environmental groups alleged that the company’s operations were responsible for a large number of pipeline ruptures, gas flaring and other forms of contamination that also contributed to greenhouse gas emissions. The Nigerian government responded to protests with a wave of repression, including the arrest and killing of prominent activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Shell denied it was involved, but critics pointed to the role played by the company in supporting the military dictatorship.

A lawsuit brought by Friends of the Earth Netherlands and four Nigerian farmers was filed in a Dutch court, alleging that spills from Shell pipelines damaged the livelihood of the farmers. The case dragged on for years, but in early 2021 the Hague Court of Appeal finally issued a decision on the case, ruling that Shell had to pay compensation to the farmers and install equipment to prevent future pipeline leaks.

Shell is not the only oil major on the hot seat. After years of leading the corporate climate denial effort, Exxon Mobil claimed to be changing its stance. It may have abandoned the overt denialism, but it resisted taking significant steps to reduce its carbon footprint. Now, institutional investors have run out of patience.

Led by an upstart hedge fund called Engine No.1, investors succeeded in electing two members to the Exxon board against the wishes of CEO Darren Woods. Those directors vowed to use their position to press the company to move toward carbon neutrality.

The two will be a minority on the board, but their election will make it harder for Woods to ignore the calls for Exxon to do more to address the climate crisis.

The revolt within Exxon and Shell’s legal setbacks will not by themselves transform business, but they are indications that large corporations may find it increasingly difficult to rely on vague commitments and instead may have to take concrete, enforceable measures to address climate change and other urgent issues.

The Opposite of Sustainability

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is one of the many global corporations, especially those based in Europe, that profess to be devoted to sustainability in their operations. Shell claims that its commitment in this area dates back to 1997.

For most large corporations, these assertions of environmental virtue are dubious at best. In the case of Shell, they are especially far-fetched, given the company’s history in countries such as Nigeria.

In the early 1990s Shell began to face protests over its oil operations in Nigeria. In 1994 the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, then led by Ken Saro-Wiwa, began blockading contractors working on Shell’s facilities to bring attention to the large number of pipeline ruptures, gas flaring and other forms of contamination that were occurring in the Ogoniland region. The group described Shell’s operations as “environmental terrorism.”

The Nigerian government, a partner with Shell in the operations, responded to the protests with a wave of repression, including the arrest of Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged in 1995. Shell denied it was involved, but critics pointed to the role played by the company in supporting the military dictatorship. Protests against the company continued.

A lawsuit brought on behalf of the Saro-Wiwa family was later filed in U.S. federal court under the Alien Tort Claims Act. In 2009, just before a trial was set to begin, the company announced that as a “humanitarian gesture” it would pay $15.5 million to the plaintiffs to settle the case. By contrast, a 2011 United Nations estimated that an environmental cleanup of the Niger Delta would cost $1 billion and take 30 years.

A separate Alien Torts Claims case brought on behalf of the Ogoni people against Royal Dutch Shell in 2002 made its way through the U.S. legal system to the Supreme Court, which in 2013 ruled that the U.S. courts could not be used to bring claims against overseas acts by foreign companies.

Another case–this one brought by Friends of the Earth Netherlands and four Nigerian farmers–was filed in a Dutch court, alleging that spills from Shell pipelines damaged the livelihood of the farmers. The case, which represented the first time a Dutch multinational has been sued in the Netherlands for overseas activities, was mostly dismissed in 2013 but the plaintiffs persisted.

Recently the Hague Court of Appeal finally issued a decision on the case, ruling that Shell has to pay compensation to the farmers and install equipment to prevent future pipeline leaks. The amount of the compensation has yet to be determined.

It is unlikely that Shell, which generates more than $300 billion in annual revenue and ranked number 5 in the most recent Fortune Global 500 list, will have difficulty paying whatever the Dutch court mandates. Perhaps the bigger problem is that Shell has never acknowledged responsibility for the ecological damage and still insists that the leaks were caused by sabotage.

Until it fully owns up to its culpability for human rights and environmental damage in Nigeria, Shell has no business presenting itself as practitioner of sustainability.

A Boom Decade for Corporate Misconduct

Business journalists are looking back with amazement at the stock market’s track record over the past decade. Yet the 2010s were also a boom period for corporate crime and misconduct.

In Violation Tracker my colleagues and I have documented more than 240,000 cases for that period representing $442 billion in fines and settlements—more than twice the $161 billion total for the previous decade. (The numbers are not adjusted for inflation.)

The cases from the 2010s include 574 with a penalty of $100 million or more, 147 with a penalty of $500 million or more, and 67 with a penalty of $1 billion or more.

The top tier of these mega-cases is dominated by four corporations. BP is linked to the largest single case on the list—the $20.8 billion settlement with the federal government and five states to resolve civil claims stemming from the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP paid out numerous other mega-penalties and smaller ones to put its total for the decade at nearly $28 billion.

The second biggest single penalty during the decade was Bank of America’s $16.65 billion settlement with the Justice Department in 2014 to resolve claims relating to fraud in the period leading up to the financial crisis, including such behavior on the part of Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Financial, which BofA acquired during that crisis. BofA also had plenty of other penalties during the decade—including two in excess of $10 billion—bringing its total for that period to an eye-popping $62 billion.

The third of the penalty leaders is Volkswagen, which in 2016 reached a $14.7 billion settlement with the federal government and the state of California to resolve allegations relating to systematic cheating on diesel pollution emission testing through the use of defeat devices. VW paid out several other multi-billion penalties related to the cheating and racked up a penalty total of more than $23 billion for the decade.

Rounding out the list of companies with individual penalties in excess of $10 billion is JPMorgan Chase, which in 2013 reached a $13 billion settlement to resolve federal and state claims relating to the sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities by the bank itself and by its acquisitions Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. JPMorgan also had several other penalties of $1 billion or more, along with smaller ones, that pushed its penalty total for the decade to more than $29 billion.

Other big domestic banks had a substantial share of mega-penalties. These include Citigroup, with a $7 billion toxic securities settlement in 2014 (and a penalty total of $16 billion for the decade) and Wells Fargo, with a similar $5.3 billion settlement in 2012 (and a penalty total of $15 billion stemming from issues such as the creation of bogus accounts to generate illicit fees).

The decade also saw a slew of mega-cases involving foreign banks such as BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Credit Suisse for offense such as violations of economic sanctions and their own toxic securities abuses.

Financial services companies of all kinds dominated the mega-penalty list, accounting for 41 of the 67 billion-dollar cases. Also worthy of mention are the pharmaceutical companies, including settlements by GlaxoSmithKline for $3 billion and Johnson & Johnson for $2.2 billion, both for marketing drugs for purposes not approved as safe by the Food and Drug Administration. That industry will end up paying much more when the pending multistate opioid litigation is resolved.

The list could continue. Suffice it to say that the decade’s major cases made it clear that corporate misconduct perseveres through good times and bad.

Should Taxpayers Foot the Bill for Rebuilding the Gulf Coast’s Petrochemical Industry?

Much of the Gulf region remains flooded, people are still being rescued, and the full magnitude of the damage is not yet known. But soon the center of attention will be the rebuilding effort and how to pay for it.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is talking about the need for a federal aid package well in excess of $100 billion. Whatever the amount turns out to be, the critical issue will be how the money is distributed.

It’s already clear that the petrochemical facilities clustered in southeastern Texas have been hard hit by the flooding, and there will no doubt be calls to use both federal and state financial resources to help repair these plants.

While there should be no hesitation about using public funds to help the people of the Gulf rebuild their lives, we shouldn’t automatically do the same for the petro giants.

The first reason is that these companies can well afford to rebuild on their own dime. Exxon Mobil, which owns the giant refinery in Baytown, earned more than $130 billion in profits during the past five years. The Motiva refinery in Port Arthur, another massive facility, is owned by Aramco, which in turn is owned by the fabulously wealthy government of Saudi Arabia.

Second, taxpayers made enormous financial contributions to the construction and operation of these facilities. As shown in Subsidy Tracker, the Motiva refinery was awarded a $257 million state and local subsidy package in 2006 to help underwrite its expansion. Earlier this year, Exxon and SABIC, another Saudi company, were granted a $460 million package to jointly build a petrochemical plant near Corpus Christi.

Apart from being subsidized, many of the Gulf region’s petrochemical plants have horrible compliance records regarding toxic emissions and worker safety. The most notorious example is the refinery in Texas City between Houston and Galveston that was previously owned by BP and subsequently sold to Marathon Petroleum. In the wake of a 2005 explosion at the facility that killed 15 workers, BP was fined a then record amount of $21 million by OSHA for a pattern of egregious safety violations in Texas City. The company failed to make the necessary corrections and was later hit with an even larger penalty. BP also had to pay nearly $180 million to settle a federal environmental case involving the refinery.

As shown in Violation Tracker, in 2013 Shell Oil had to pay more than $117 million to resolve Clean Air Act violations at its Deer Park refinery outside Houston. The chemical plant in Crosby, Texas owned by the French company Arkema, where flooding has caused explosions, was fined $107,918 earlier this year by OSHA for serious safety violations (company later negotiated a reduction down to $91,724).

Providing more subsidies for these facilities would in effect negate the impact of the penalties the corporations paid for their negligence.

Finally, there is the difficult question of whether all these facilities should be rebuilt at all, especially if taxpayer funds are involved. The Gulf refineries play a significant role in an energy system that exacerbates the climate crisis, which likely contributed to the intensity of Harvey. We may not be free of fossil fuels yet, but does it make sense to use public resources to prolong the life of facilities linked to extreme weather events that threaten our future?

Principles versus Interests

The website of every large corporation these days has a section labeled Corporate Social Responsibility containing high-minded language about its commitment to sustainability, community development, human rights and the like.

For the most part, these positions serve mainly as a form of corporate image-burnishing and have little real-world applicability. Now, however, a group of large U.S. and foreign banks are being challenged to live up to their CSR principles in connection with one of the most contentious projects of our day: the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Following a recent decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to block the final permit needed to route the pipeline (usually referred to as DAPL) under North Dakota’s Lake Oahe and dangerously closely to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, the project is stalled. Yet that could quickly change with the incoming Trump Administration.

Meanwhile, attention has turned to a syndicate of 17 lenders that have committed a $2.5 billion line of credit to the project. Among the leaders of the pack are Citigroup and TD Securities, owned by Canada’s Toronto-Dominion Bank. Of the 17, all but two are endorsers of a CSR document known as the Equator Principles. (The list of endorsers is here; the two members of the syndicate not among them are China’s ICBC Bank and Suntrust Robinson Humphrey.)

The principles were drawn up in 2003 by a group of major banks facing increasing pressure from environmental and human rights groups over their involvement in controversial projects undertaken by mining, petroleum and timber corporations.

In adopting the principles, banks committed to providing loans only to those projects whose sponsors could demonstrate that they would be performed in a “socially responsible” manner and according to “sound environmental principles.” Sponsors were also supposed to conduct assessments that took into consideration issues such as the impact on indigenous communities.

The current version of the Equator Principles states that projects affecting indigenous peoples should include “a process of Informed Consultation and Participation, and will need to comply with the rights and protections for indigenous peoples contained in relevant national law, including those laws implementing host country obligations under international law…Projects with adverse impacts on indigenous people will require their Free, Prior and Informed Consent.”

It is highly questionable that Equity Transfer Partners and the other companies involved in DAPL have met this test. On the contrary, the harsh response of the project sponsors and local law enforcement agencies to the peaceful protests at the site has demonstrated an utter disregard for the concerns of Native water protectors.

It is no surprise that opponents of the pipeline are calling the lenders to task. In November a group of more than 500 civil society organizations from 50 countries issued a joint letter to the 17 lenders citing the Equator Principles and calling on them to suspend their financial support of the project until the concerns of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe are fully addressed.

So far there is no sign that the lenders are prepared to withdraw their support of the pipeline. This means there will be more clashes ahead — both between police and protestors, and between the profit interests of the lenders and their purported principles.

Why Don’t More Corporate Executives Commit Suicide?

The business news is abuzz with reports that the fatal car crash of fracking executive Aubrey McClendon a day after he was indicted on federal bid-rigging charges may have been intentional. The high speed at which McClendon’s SUV was apparently travelling at the time of the collision and the absence of skid marks are generating speculation that he deliberately drove into a bridge support.

If McClendon did indeed take his own life for reasons connected to his indictment, it would not be the first case of scandal-induced corporate suicide. In 2002, for instance, J. Clifford Baxter, former vice chairman of the notorious energy company Enron, was reported to have shot himself in the head, leaving a note saying “where there was once great pride now it’s gone.”

Yet in comparison to the high degree of corporate misconduct, executive suicides are quite rare. Part of the reason is that so few executives are prosecuted individually, as was McClendon, and thus are less likely to feel the intense shame that usually prompts acts of self-destruction. And when those prosecutions do occur, some executives remain defiant, depicting themselves of victims of overzealous prosecutors.

A prime example of such defiance was former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, who insisted he was targeted for political reasons despite the extensive evidence against him in a case stemming from the deaths of 29 miners in the Upper Big Branch disaster in 2010. Blankenship was convicted of conspiracy to violate federal mine safety laws but acquitted of lying to regulators.

It’s significant that McClendon’s possible suicide occurred after he was indicted on the relatively abstract charge of conspiring to rig bids for oil and natural gas leases in Oklahoma. While the charges are serious, they do not directly involve harm to people and the environment.

On the other hand, Chesapeake Energy, which McClendon co-founded in 1989 and ran until 2013, has been involved in numerous cases involving allegations of such harm in the course of fracking. In the Violation Tracker my colleagues and I at Good Jobs First created, we found more than 30 cases since 2010 in which the company has paid more than $10 million in EPA fines and settlements. Apparently, there was no shame in that.

Although it would be ghoulish to suggest that anyone commit suicide, there is no shortage of other executives who should also at least be feeling more intense shame for their actions. A number of them are at companies in the business of producing vehicles like the one in which McClendon was driving at the time of his death. McClendon’s Chevrolet Tahoe is produced by General Motors, which had to pay a fine of $900 million to resolve criminal charges in connection with an ignition switch defect linked to more than a dozen deaths.

Then there’s the case of Japan’s Takata, which is embroiled in a controversy over the production of millions of defective airbags that in some cases ruptured and sent shrapnel flying at drivers and passengers. Or else Volkswagen, which has admitted wholesale cheating on auto emissions tests, leading to untold additional amounts of air pollution.

There are plenty of additional past and present examples from industries such as chemicals, mining, tobacco and asbestos. The answer is not for more top executives to take their own lives, but for them to end their reckless behavior to protect the lives of the rest of us.