Welcome back to Drilled, I'm Amy Westervelt.

Today, I'm talking to investigative journalist Chris McGreill with Guardian.

He's just come out with a story about a new and particularly aggressive tactic that Exxon

Mobile is using to try to stop at least some of the climate liability cases that have been

filed against them.

They filed a petition in Texas to try to bring officials from several of the California,

counties, and cities that have filed these suits to Texas for depositions and to get their

hands on communications between those officials and their attorneys.

They're invoking an obscure Texas law to do that.

It's actually the second time they've tried to do something like this.

And one of the things that they're alleging is that these officials and their attorneys

are infringing on Exxon's First Amendment rights to say whatever they'd like about climate

change.

Another argument they're making is that these suits filed in California somehow infringed

on the sovereignty of Texas.

We're going to get into all of that and more right after this quick break.

My name is Chris McGreill.

I'm a reporter for the Guardian.

I'm based in New York and I'm mostly focused on writing about how the oil industry is coming

at the climate crisis, particularly its efforts over the years, but also continuing right

now to either deny the realities of climate change or to change the conversation or distract

from them.

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