Responding to today’s announcement that Exxon has agreed to purchase Mobil, critics say that the merger of the two oil giants would mean a vast consolidation of economic power and a serious threat to the global environment. The proposed Exxon Mobil Corp. would be the largest energy company in the world.

Among the researchers and policy analysts available for interviews are:

WENONA HAUTER
Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project, said: “We’re talking about putting back together Standard Oil, which was broken up 90 years ago. Consumers are eventually going to pay the price for this since it induces non-competitive behavior. It’s bad public policy. The lax treatment of mergers, with the government just winking at this, empowers such corporate consolidation.”
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JOHN PASSACANTANDO
“I don’t know if Adam Smith said anything about businesses conspiring to do environmental damage,” said Passacantando, executive director of Ozone Action. “But putting Exxon and Mobil together creates the Death Star of global warming.”
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FR. MICHAEL CROSBY
Crosby is coordinator for Campaign Exxon, a new group of church-based Exxon shareholders and environmental organizations concerned about the oil company’s approach to global warming. “Economically, they may think this marriage is made in heaven,” he said. “Ecologically, we think this marriage is bad for the heavens as well as the Earth. These two have done much to undermine national and international efforts to lessen global warming. To have them come together is only going to make matters worse.”

MARC BRESLOW
Co-Editor of Dollars and Sense magazine, Breslow recently authored an article titled “I Want My Ford Explorer! But Can the World Survive Cheap Gas?” On Tuesday, Breslow said: “Wall Street is hailing this merger as another step towards greater efficiency, but that efficiency in getting oil out of the ground cheaply today will have disastrous results both for oil supplies in the long run and for the environment. There have been many false scares over time about whether there will be shortages of oil, and the last 20 years have made people overconfident that there’s plenty of oil around. But it appears that both the oil companies and the oil-producing countries are myopic. They’re producing at a fast pace now, even though it’s not sustainable…. The likely result, unlike previous scares, is that we really are going to face shortages relative to demand in another decade.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.