How big oil keeps a grip on New Mexico - with the help of a major lobbyist
Source: Floodlight and Carlsbad Current-Argus via The Guardian
How big oil keeps a grip on New Mexico – with the help of a major lobbyist
Records show the firm FTI and its fossil fuel clients benefit from local government ties
Cody Nelson for Floodlight and Adrian Hedden for the Carlsbad Current-Argus
Sun 11 Jul 2021 11.00 BST
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Situated in the Chihuahuan desert of New Mexico’s staunchly Republican south-east region, Eddy county is a rural, industrial area, where the top employers are in the mining and oil and gas industries. And county leaders appeared to be depending on their influential allies, including the international lobbying firm FTI Consulting, to keep it that way.
FTI, best known for consulting large corporations, has previously worked on behalf of major oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron and Cimarex.
But for the past several years, it has also had lobbying contracts with much smaller clients: Eddy county and the city of Carlsbad, the county seat.
Emails, contracts and other records obtained by Floodlight and the watchdog organization Documented show how FTI has used its footholds in Carlsbad and Eddy county for years to help push pro fossil-fuel messaging and policy. At the same time, FTI has been able to give its energy company clients easy access to local officials. The firm and one of its spinoffs are not registered as lobbyists with the state.
In the first quarter of this year alone, Carlsbad and Eddy county together paid at least $50,000 for FTI’s influence services. These publicly funded lobbying efforts have helped to maintain the fossil fuel industry’s stronghold in New Mexico – a state where Indigenous communities have criticized previous oil and gas policies as environmental racism because of the long-term impact on their health and land.
FTI has a reputation across the US for running influence campaigns that give the impression they were started by local concerned citizens, despite being funded by big oil, a practice known as astroturfing. ...
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/11/pro-oil-gas-lobbying-influence-republican-new-mexico