Nine students bicycled through campus covered with black tempera paint and “Exxpose Exxon” signs on Wednesday afternoon in protest of the ExxonMobil oil company.
“They’re the front-runners of the oil industry, but they actually don’t invest any money in alternative resources,” freshman English major Sean Mis said. “It’s pathetic.”
Mis also said ExxonMobil still owes billions of dollars to Alaska businesses and residents hurt by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and that ExxonMobil is the only major oil company still trying to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
“We agree with them that a clean environment and climate change are important issues but strongly refute the allegations that they make against ExxonMobil and their attempts to smear our name in this way,” Mark Boudreaux, media relations manager for Exxon Mobil Corporation, wrote in an e-mail regarding the protest.
Boudreaux added that the punitive damages sought after the Valdez incident were thrown out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals twice, that ANWR can be explored and developed in environmentally responsible ways, and that the corporation invests substantial funding into climate research programs.
Junior environmental studies major Megan DeBates said the Exxpose Exxon group plans to make the rides monthly, with a ride to the ExxonMobil gas station on Highway 99 in late January. The campus group, supported by the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group, is part of a national campaign; more information is at www.exxposeexxon.com.
– Eva Sylwester