The Dubai-based company with four employees came with an impressive-sounding dual name. On its website, Harrington Rowe appeared as a boutique executive search firm, specialising in the recruitment of senior public affairs and government relations professionals.
“Operating internationally across a specialised portfolio of sectors including oil and gas, clean tech, commodities and private equity, we excel in finding, assessing and acquiring the best C-Suite, director and senior-level talent working in public affairs and government relations today,” it boasted. C-suite refers to the titles of top corporate executives, which tend to start with the letter “C,” for “Chief,” such as in Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Harrington Rowe’s Principal, Natural Resources, the smooth-talking Tom James was listed as a former Policy Adviser to the United Kingdom’s (UK) Labour Party, and a Senior Consultant of the infamous British public relations and reputation management group, Bell Pottinger. Bell Pottinger collapsed in 2017, after it was exposed for running a racially charged “dirty” campaign in South Africa for Oakbay Investments, controlled by the controversial Gupta brothers, with close ties to the then President Jacob Zuma government.
On Monday, South African prosecutors announced that the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) was considering issuing red notices for the arrest of two of the three Indian-born businessmen brothers, Atul and Rajesh Gupta and their wives, for alleged fraud, bribery and money laundering. The family is at the centre of a 2016-probe into the embezzlement of State assets. With older sibling, Ajay, the brothers fled South Africa and are suspected to be hiding in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of which Dubai is a member.
Back in May, Harrington Rowe’s Mr. James was seeking seasoned campaigners to help establish a Washington presence for a wealthy Middle East Fund planning to bet big on American oil and gas, but most concerned about potential climate and environmental regulations.
The salaries were expected to be so good, that when he reached out to the Senior Director of Federal Relations for the ExxonMobil, Keith McCoy, the energy lobbyist, who is responsible for representing the behemoth Corporation before the United States (US) House of Representatives, expressed definite interest.
According to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Mr. James previously served as the Executive Director of Public Policy for Johnson Controls, a global company offering products and services to optimize energy and operational efficiencies of buildings, automotive batteries, electronics and interior systems for automobiles. Prior, he held several positions at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the nation’s largest broad-based manufacturing trade body, leading the energy and environment department, and managing a team of lobbyists on matters before Congress and the Administration. At the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, he worked on state issues pertaining to energy and the environment, and was the Switzer Fellow for environmental studies at Tufts University.
But by the end of last week, Mr. McCoy was fighting to keep his plush job and placate his furious bosses of the past eight years. The Harrington Rowe website had suddenly vanished like the LinkedIn profile pages and the tantalising offers in the UAE, for Mr. James turned out to be an undercover reporter working for the investigative journalism arm of Greenpeace UK, “Unearthed.”
Since June 30 last, Greenpeace has posted explosive portions of shocking video interviews it secretly recorded on Zoom with Mr. McCoy and Dan Easley, a former Exxon White House lobbyist during the previous administration, who now runs federal affairs for the renewable power company Apex Clean Energy. Mr. Easley spent over a decade as a congressional staffer before going to work for Exxon.
The UK’s Channel Four also reported on the elaborate sting last month-end https://www.channel4.com/ news/revealed-exxonmobils-lobbying-war-on-climate-change-legislation in a viral video, noting that ExxonMobil secretly fought against legislative action on climate change using third-party organisations, and that Mr. McCoy revealed he lobbied key US Senators to remove or water down related measures in US President Joe Biden’s US $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs bill.
According to “Inside Exxon’s playbook: How America’s biggest oil company continues to oppose action on climate change” and available at https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/06/30/exxon-climate-change-undercover/ the activist environmental organisation declared, “Exxon continues to deny having misled the public on climate change, and no serving Exxon executive has ever admitted that the company fought climate science to protect the company’s financial interests – until now.”
Acknowledging that ExxonMobil used “shadow groups” to mask accountability and challenge established climate science even as the company’s own experts, years ago, calculated higher greenhouse gas emissions as a grave risk to the planet, Mr. McCoy declared: “Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing, there’s nothing illegal about that” because “We were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders.”
Mr. McCoy questioned the proposed carbon tax publicly backed by ExxonMobil. “I will tell you there is not an appetite for a carbon tax. It is a non-starter. Nobody is going to propose a tax on all Americans. And the cynical side of me says yeah we kind of know that. But it gives us a talking point. We can say well what is ExxonMobil for? Well we’re for a carbon tax.”
The “carbon tax is not gonna happen. I have always said (that), and I’ve worked on climate change issues for 20 years. There’s a lot of talk around it and the bottom line is it’s going to take political courage, political will in order to get something done. And that just doesn’t exist in politics. It just doesn’t.”
A week ago, a contrite Mr. McCoy posted on LinkedIn, “I am deeply embarrassed by my comments and that I allowed myself to fall for Greenpeace’s deception.” He then insisted, “My statements clearly do not represent ExxonMobil’s positions on important public policy issues. While some of my comments were taken out of context, there is no excuse for what I said or how I said it. I apologize to all my colleagues at the company and my friends in Washington, D.C., all of whom have a right to expect better of me.”
In his response, ExxonMobil’s CEO, Darren Woods rushed to contain the damage, “Comments made by the individuals in no way represent the company’s position on a variety of issues, including climate policy and our firm commitment that carbon pricing is important to addressing climate change,” a multi-tweet thread affirmed.
“The individuals interviewed were never involved in developing the company’s policy positions on the issues discussed. We condemn the statements and are deeply apologetic for them, including comments regarding interactions with elected officials. They are entirely inconsistent with the way we expect our people to conduct themselves. We were shocked by these interviews and stand by our commitments to working on finding solutions to climate change.” As Guyana’s recent floods and the world’s increasing environmental catastrophes show, these have certainly not come quickly enough.
ID never liked fishing. Mr McCoy advised: “When you have an opportunity to talk to a member of Congress, I liken it to fishing, right? You know you have bait, you throw that bait out….And then you start to reel them in….they help me out. They’re a captive audience.”
