WASHINGTON – A trio of Democratic Senators is asking some of Marathon Petroleum’s largest shareholders, including JP Morgan Chase and Blackrock, to warn the Ohio-based refining company that it needs to stop lobbying against climate action.
“Marathon is one of the leading forces in Washington opposing efforts to limit carbon pollution and fight climate change, ” reads the letter. “As a major financial institution, we believe that you have a critical role to play in shaping the lobbying and influencing activities of the companies you own to ensure that this considerable influence is not condoned against the climate action you claim to support.”
The letter from Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, of Rhode Island, Brian Schatz, of New Mexico, and Martin Heinrich, of Minnesota, follows efforts by American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative activist group of which Marathon Petroleum, the American Petroleum Institute and other oil interests were reportedly members, to weaken national efficiency standards for cars and trucks, known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy or CAFE standard.
“CAFE standards are now a relic of a disproven narrative of resource scarcity, as the United States is currently poised to become the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world and a net exporter of energy,” read an ALEC resolution released in 2018.
While originally written in reaction to OPEC 1973 oil embargo, the vehicle efficiency standards have been adopted as a tool to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Former president Barack Obama ordered the standards to double by 2025, with new vehicles averaging 54 miles per gallon. But the Trump administration has since frozen the standards, setting off a legal fight with environmentalists and California, which has long set its own efficiency standards.
Marathon Petroleum, which was a subsidiary of Houston-based Marathon Oil until a 2011 spin-off, told Politico the company was making efforts to “diversify our portfolio, including our substantial investments in biofuels.”
