Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westerville. For the rest of the year we'll be bringing you two episodes a month that continue the story we began in season one.

Unpacking some of the more complex aspects of the climate denial machine.

And looking at what's happening now from ongoing influence campaigns to lawsuits, newly uncovered documents and more.

We're also in the process of reporting two more investigative series which I'll share more about as we get closer to wrapping them up.

It turns out there's a lot more to this story.

In the first season of Drilled we looked at the origins of climate denial in the 1980s and 1990s.

But those influence campaigns are not ancient history. They're still going on. And today we have a pretty crazy example of how they've evolved.

You're going to hear about a fake news site created by an energy association that keeps its members secret.

Staffed by a PR firm with a large roster of fossil fuel clients.

First meet Marco Simon's in attorney with Earth Rights International representing the city of Boulder and various other Colorado communities in a lawsuit against ExxonMobil and SunCore.

They're seeking compensation for the costs of adapting to climate change.

A month or so ago an energy news site requested an interview with Simon's about the case.

We knew about Western wires affiliation with the Western Energy Alliance for we've known about that for quite a while.

What's new here is their apparent specific association with ExxonMobil.

The site Western Wire is published by the Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas industry trade group.

They keep their members secret and Simon's wanted to make sure that neither of the defendants in his suit were members.

Here's the beginning of their conversation. You'll hear Western Wire managing editor Michael stand of all first.

Then Simon's responding.

So thank you for taking some time. I am doing the story on this.

So I am just to let you know I'm recording the call. That's an issue.

I wanted to let you know that up front. I had sent you a couple questions. I have a couple other questions.

But just sort of up to you. You know how you want to proceed but happy to walk through those.

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