Four members of the Senate Democratic caucus broke ranks and joined Republicans to confirm former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. The vote was 56-43, with Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., not voting.
Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, voted for Tillerson.
As secretary of state, Tillerson will have tremendous power to influence climate-related negotiations — and to help energy firms secure rights to pump fossil fuels overseas.
Warner, Heitkamp, and Manchin are long-time boosters of the Keystone XL pipeline; the State Department has major authority over its construction due to it being a cross-border project.
Warner is a reliable ally of oil and gas drilling. He introduced a bill in 2013 to expand offshore drilling and co-sponsored similar legislation in 2011 and 2012. He was also one of nine Democrats in the Senate who voted to override a veto by President Obama of legislation supporting the Keystone XL pipeline. “My record on Keystone is clear: I support the pipeline. After six years of study and debate, it’s time to approve this project and get on with it,” Warner said in 2014.
Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Mark Warner, D-Va., confer during the Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing on Jan. 19, 2017. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
Warner has earned his four-figure checks from Political Action Committees (PACs) operated by Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, the American Gas Association, and others in the industry. But corporate influence in politics doesn’t bother him. Warner told a crowd of assembled business elites at a conference last year that they need to be more involved. “I get a little tired of the business community bitching about Washington but then never wanting to get their hands dirty,” he complained.
Heitkamp is also a booster of the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that it will have “minimal environmental impact.” The energy industry is her second-largest pool of PAC donors in the current cycle, giving $122,000.
Manchin is another Keystone booster, telling opponents that they should “look at the jobs it creates” (it creates 35 permanent jobs). Keystone-backers like the American Petroleum Institute have supported him with their PAC dollars.
King is the only member of the Senate Democratic caucus who opposed the Keystone pipeline but supported Tillerson.
Documents reviewed by The Intercept show that Exxon has repeatedly asked the State Department for assistance in securing oil and gas concessions abroad — including help overcoming opposition to fracking permits in Germany, and negotiating with the government of Indonesia for access to gas fields in the South China Sea.
Asked to state his position on climate change during his confirmation hearing, Tillerson replied that the increases in greenhouse gas concentrations “are having an effect,” but said “our ability to predict that effect is very limited.”
When asked whether climate change causes storms or extreme weather events, Tillerson replied that “there’s some literature out there that suggests that; there’s other literature that says it’s inconclusive.”
Warner issued a statement Wednesday saying he disagrees with Tillerson’s stance on climate change, but that he believes Tillerson will bring a “more experienced, measured voice” to the Trump administration.
King said he believes Tillerson will serve as an “counterweight to the more impulsive forces within the current administration,” and that his concerns about Tillerson were outweighed “by the need to have a strong and serious leader at the helm of the State Department.”
Heitkamp did not issue a public statement explaining her vote and did not immediately return request for comment.
Manchin issued a statement saying he has known Tillerson through mutual volunteer work with the Boy Scouts of America, and called him “honorable and patriotic.” Manchin did not mention Tillerson’s position on climate.
U.S. oil companies have long enjoyed a close relationship with the State Department, which aggressively promotes the industry’s interests abroad. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton personally promoted fracking overseas, and even set up a 63-person bureau in 2011 to “pursue more energy outreach to private-sector energy” companies.
With an oil man now the U.S.’s top envoy to the world, they’ve become inseparable.
Top photo: Rex Tillerson answers questions in his confirmation hearing for secretary of state in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Jan. 11, 2017, in Washington.
I hope there’s no defector for Supreme Court nomination. Republican should taste their own medicine for blocking Obama Supreme Court nomination. If they want to use nuclear option, then so be it. I prefer it than defectors.
I actually trust Tillerson more than the last oilperson leading State (Condoleeza Rice, the one with a tanker named for her). His oil policies are awful, and some of his reversals are disappointing (like his criticism of Russia, and being close to Saudis). OTOH, he did express thoughts of trying to reduce tensions with Russia (a must!), and he (unlike many other Trump choices) is willing to risk his position for LGBT people, as he helped open up the BSA to gay scouts (A position the Religious Right tried to use against him).
I’d much prefer him in power than Sessions or DeVos or Mnuchin.
“I’d much prefer him in power than Sessions or DeVos or Mnuchin.”
This comparison is not only apples and oranges, it’s beside the point. I’d rather have none in power over the prospective agencies, because they’re all bad.
I agree. He is obvious about his oil connections,” tanker Rice” was not. Tell me when the US foreign policy was NOT guided by oil interests (as Kissinger likes to call them ” geopolitical interests”). So what is new here??? move along
I believe it is till premature to predict what his true political views before he announce any stand toward critical international affair.
Actually I feel released when he show his cautious comment toward aggressive Russian. Tillerson’s explanation about how the U.S. should counter Russian expansionist ideology today closely follows Kennan’s original vision of containment.
As he described himself as a “realist man”, I hope he won’t behave as his president who embrace such illusion that “soften tension with Putin would trade for building a new ally to counter Chinese growth”.
The coalition that stopped KeystoneXL is fully prepared to keep fighting the issue. There is no legal permit through Nebraska at this time.
On the surface it seems like a religion. You believe or you are an infidel.
In reality it’s about two things primarily: 1) Cap and Trade, carbon credit markets, derivatives. It’s about people like Al Gore (https://www.generationim.com/) cashing in for hundreds of millions of dollars. And 2) globalists controlling the production, distribution and sale of energy for the entire planet. George H W Bush’s “New World Order.
It’s junk science, always has been.
It’s yet another ponzi scheme devised by Goldman Sachs, Al Gore, George W Bush and his pals over at Enron before they caved in. These people don’t give damn about the planet.
Measuring temperatures for a couple hundred years on a planet that according to them is 4.5 billion years old and declaring anything other than we don’t have enough data (duh) is a hoax.
Here’s how to call their bluff, say yes to regulations requiring the reduction of “greenhouse” gasses but no to any sort of financial instruments to “facilitate” the regulations and see how many takers in government and business you get.
It’s about a new derivatives bubble.
Sources other than mainstream news one might consider:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/clarifications-corrections/526191/Climate-change-is-a-lie-global-warming-not-real-claims-weather-channel-founder
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/sam-dorman/2017/01/05/georgia-tech-climatologist-retires-academia-due-craziness-field?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=gt-climatologist&utm_medium=marketing
http://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2015/10/01/cap-and-trade-green-climate-fund-are-fraught-with-fraud/#394ec7f2ba5e
http://storyofstuff.org/story-of-cap-and-trade-2/story-of-cap-and-trade-faqs/
nope. not a religion. it’s just basic science, painstakingly supported over the decades. just to pick out one error, you seem to believe that climatology is only based on a couple of hundred years of measurements. for one thing ice core samples used as supporting evidence go back several hundred thousand years. for another, it’s just basic physics, first discovered iirc in 1824. was there a conspiracy then? if it were junk science, it wouldn’t fool the royal society and every other major science organization.
Thank you Zaid Jilani and Alex Emmons.
Periodically, I am reminded to go online to see what’s happening at Marcellus Drilling News (MDN).
A little tidbit from today: “Finally, something is being done about draining the swamp that has been (until now) a rogue, out-of-control federal Environmental Protection Agency. ”
According to an AP article… “Trump wants to dump half of EPA’s 15,000 employees. Maybe more. To which we say, hooray! Gutting the EPA is making environmental radicals who have had their way with the agency for the last eight years, apoplectic…”
And this: “The PBS “reporters” at the taxpayer-funded StateImpact Pennsylvania…
…They are, instead, radical leftists with an agenda…”
The EPA did not stop the oil spill in the Gulf, it did not prevent children in Michigan from drinking poisoned water, it did not halt the poisoning of groundwater from extensive fracking. Would the American people’s health and environment be improved if we added 15,000 new EPA employees, I kind of doubt it. Both parties are “business” friendly and that determines what the EPA looks like, Trump or no Trump.
Flex Drillerson. Ach.
This is depressing.
Looks to me like a deal has been made. Trump will sacrifice Devos (not a good pick anyway) if the Dems let the rest through. Tillerson just skated through.
The Dems will pound their chests, and revel in how they stopped Devos.
The lefties will eat it up.
No you know there was a deal made if both Sessions and DeVos are withdrawn. Short of that, the GOP has no incentive to deal, and the Dems don’t either.
But I’ll concede that these Dems are so pathetically weak, they probably would trade DeVos for everybody else because they are shameless craven cowards.
Force the GOP to nuke the filibuster on both DeVos and Sessions or prepare to be primaried for every single turncoat that votes for either.
Same thing with Trump’s Supreme Court nomination. Any Dem who casts a vote for any of the three should expect a primary challenge.
Make the GOP own all three, but no deals or they will be dead for another 20 years politically because their based will further desert them. As the base should. Stand for something or stand for nothing. That’s the choice they are facing and if they don’t comprehend that, it not only wouldn’t surprise me, but I won’t feel bad when they are totally decimated in elections everywhere until all centrists are purged from the party.
The “Dems” have no incentive to deal because they support Trump’s picks to begin with. They probably got the say-so to go ahead and just vote their inner bastard, from Hillary herself, who no doubt has been having all manner of dealings with Tillerson and the Exxon cabal, for the past umpteen years.
Agree. It is so pathetic.
Fuck Democrats.
Here, here!
Zaid and Alex, thank you for staying on top of this stuff. It’s not going to be easy to keep track with all the nastiness happening at such a rapid pace, so your efforts are very much appreciated.
Yeah how utterly predictable by those Dems, and Dems generally. But it will be nice during primary time for Zaid and Alex to have kept good records in an easily reproducible format.
That way I know who to target with donations against Dem incumbents who sold us out.
Target against all of them
The great thing about Trump is he’s going to put forward so many odious people and priorities that the Dems are going to have a real hard time hiding their complicity with a few nice sounding, but never enacted, pieces of legislation.
Let the momentum build so we can get rid of these parasites calling themselves Democrats
Fyi, been trying to post this article directly from FB but everytime i was booted out frim the Intercept’s page by FB… did it thru website…
Heitkamp and her brother, a North Dakota radio personality, have also been cheerleading for DAPL in various forums (including RT America). Their direct ties to DAPL are via Phillips 66, whose major investor is top Hillary Clinton supporter billionaire Warren Buffett (the Republicans are tied to DAPL via Energy Transfer Partners billionaire CEO Kelcy Warren.
If you want articles about the Democratic supporters of DAPL, cut n’ paste:
[ warren buffett hillary clinton dakota access phillips 66 ]
If you want articles about the Republican supporters of DAPL, cut n’ paste:
[ kelcy warren donald trump dakota access energy transfer partners ]
https://www.google.com/
“The Rise of the American Oligarchs” – been going on for a while now hasn’t it?
P.S. you find VERY few articles covering the whole DAPL picture in any depth, here’s one of them:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/23/buying-silence-why-so-many-democrats-are-mute-about-standing-rock/
The Democrats need real progressive candidates if they expect ever to win anything ever again.
And they need to stop the DNC from cheating us out of winning candidates like President Bernie.
They have no intention of ever doing those things.
The choice of Schumer to “lead” the fetid cabal is the bloody clot of sputum that ought to clinch the diagnosis, even in those prone to inexplicable seizures of “Liberal” optimism.
Perfectly put. They are already starting to sabotage candidates like Tulsi Gabbard
a 2 front war (maybe 3 if we include trump as separate from the traditional republican party, or 4 if we attempt a fine distinction between the traditional republican party and the dnc dinos.