Today, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on the nomination of Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil’s former CEO, to serve as our Secretary of State. This first week of the Trump presidency has been rough, but even in this world of fake news and redoubling lies from our new president’s mouth, this pick is almost too egregious to believe. Well, believe it. And then call your senators and tell them to vote NO on Tillerson.
As a reminder, here are a few of the egregious items that make Tillerson such a disastrous pick for this post:
He is an oil man and will always be an oil man. He has spent his entire professional career, over 40 years, at ExxonMobil, pursuing the profits of the oil industry at all costs - including human rights abuses, destruction of the environment, and skirting US sanctions to do business with state sponsors of terror like Iran, Syria and Sudan while he served as a senior executive.
ExxonMobil funded a massive misinformation campaign to hide the reality of climate change from the American public, for which they are now under investigation. Detailed investigations have revealed that Exxon not only knew about the threat of climate change many decades ago and failed to take action to avoid the coming crisis, but chose instead to launch a major effort to prevent action on climate change by obscuring the clarity of the science, attacking lead scientists, and funding the production of misinformation. And now this fraudster-in-chief could be in charge of leading our international negotiations on climate change? During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tillerson refused to answer Senator Tim Kaine’s (D-VA) question about Exxon’s climate coverup. When Kaine asked whether he was refusing to answer or whether he lacked the knowledge to do, Tillerson flippantly replied “A little of both.” This disrespect for both the severity of the matter at hand and for Senator Kaine,was outrageous.
Tillerson has no experience in government or diplomacy, yet has been applauded by Trump for his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom Tillerson has had more interactive time than nearly any other American. Tillerson’s negotiations led to a deal allowing Exxon access rights to explore for oil and gas resources in the Russian-Arctic for $500 billion -- but this deal can go through only if the U.S. lifts sanctions instituted against Russia. Guess what Donald Trump said he was considering doing last week? Lifting those Russian sanctions. Looks like that Tillerson friendship could pay dividends for Putin.
Simply put, Tillerson is an unqualified and inappropriate pick for this role (and this might have had something to do with the unprecedented mass exodus of senior staff who walked off the job from the State Department on Friday). His nomination alone signals Trump’s confusion of fossil fuel industry profits with the public interest and his misguided desire to drag us back into the fossil fuel era.
Call your senators now at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to vote NO on Rex Tillerson’s nomination for Secretary of State. The silver lining of Trump’s climate-denying, bigoted, backward administration is that it is sparking a movement -- as evidenced by the millions of Americans who took to the streets in protest for unprecedented and jubilant rallies the day after the inauguration, far outnumbering those who attended the actual inauguration. A movement is brewing. Join us in the resistance and call your senators now!