Ford Motor and Occidental Petroleum Put Heads in Sand Over Global Warming

Despite making pronouncements over global warming, Ford Motor Company and Occidental Petroleum managements refuse to give their stockowners any supporting scientific facts, says the Free Enterprise Education Institute (FEEI). A proposal to require such a scientific report will be presented at the annual meetings by stockowner Carl Olson of Woodland Hills, California, chairman of the Fund for Stockowners Rights.

"Ford and Oxy managements are imperiling our companies by failing to tell the stockowners any facts behind their public and lobbying stands on global warming/cooling," Olson stated. "It's a classic failure of due diligence by the boards who are taking actions without getting the facts first."

The proposal requests the companies report on five basic facts that they currently use for their statements on global warming/cooling. These are the global temperature measurements, the names of greenhouse gases, the effects of sunshine, the sources of carbon dioxide, and what greenhouse effect carbon dioxide has.

Both managements oppose Olson's proposal. Ford admits, "We continue to believe that expending additional capital to either confirm or disprove, or even discuss, numerous scientific studies regarding global warming or cooling is not a wise use of Company resources."

Occidental argued the scientific data was irrelevant: "The substantial volume of primary scientific data requested by this proposal is not obtained by Occidental during the ordinary course of its business or directly relevant to its chemical or oil and gas operations."

Similar resolutions won 94 million share votes at Ford in 2006 and 21 million share votes at Oxy. Numerous pension funds, endowment funds, mutual funds, and other stockowners are being urged to spur these two managements to come to grips with the scientific realities of global warming/cooling. "Too many billions of dollars of misdirected company resources could result from wrong public policies on global warming/cooling if companies fail to start their positions from scientific reality," Olson concluded.

The mission of the Free Enterprise Education Institute is to educate the public about the threats to the free enterprise system. "We believe global warming shareholder proposals like the one advocated by the Fund for Stockowners Rights are important because they spotlight the hijacking of publicly-owned companies by environmental extremists," said Steve Milloy of the FEEI.