by Jeffrey Ball, March 28, 2005
Overruling objections from Exxon Mobil Corp., Securities and Exchange Commission officials said investor activists can ask Exxon shareholders to vote on two resolutions demanding that the oil giant disclose more information about its stance on global warming.
One of the resolutions SEC officials cleared to appear on Exxon’s proxy asks the world’s largest publicly traded oil company in terms of market value to report how it plans to reduce its emissions enough to comply with the Kyoto Protocol at Exxon facilities in countries where the treaty applies.
The other resolution cleared by SEC staff asks Exxon to disclose the research data behind the company’s “stated position on the science” about global warming.
The SEC staff’s decisions show how prickly an issue global warming is becoming for the oil industry. Earlier this month ChevronTexaco Corp. and several smaller U.S. oil companies that faced similar global-warming-related shareholder resolutions got shareholders to withdraw those measures after the companies agreed to take more action on the environmental issue.
Exxon has emerged as a lightning rod in the global-warming debate. It calls the science behind concerns about man-made global-warming emissions “inconclusive,” though it adds that the effects of those emissions “may prove to be significant.” The company says it is spending big sums on global-warming research and has been working to reduce its emissions.
After a 2003 global-warming-related resolution against Exxon won a surprising 22.2% of shareholder support, the company last year published a report on the environmental issue.
The 2004 document says the company intends “to comply in the most cost-effective manner with whatever regulations and mandates are issued” regarding global warming. In recent weeks Exxon argued to SEC officials that its 2004 report makes unnecessary an additional report on the company’s plans to comply with Kyoto or on the company’s views on global-warming science.
Both resolutions were filed by groups composed mostly of religious orders. The Rev. Michael Crosby, in charge of corporate responsibility for the Province of St. Joseph of the Capuchin Order, the Detroit-based religious group that led the shareholder effort for the Kyoto-related resolution, says the company’s 2004 report was too general.
In letters they issued on the matter this month, SEC lawyers didn’t explain their reasons for denying Exxon’s request to kill the shareholder resolutions. An SEC spokesman declined to elaborate.
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