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Last Updated on January 10, 2017.

 
We’re writing to pass along the following letter from a broad coalition of 57 national organizations — including groups focused on foreign policy, civil rights, climate, human rights, faith, labor, development and transparency issues — urging the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to reject the nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be the next Secretary of State.
The organizations on this letter represent tens of millions of Americans across the nation. Their message is clear: Mr. Tillerson’s lifelong career working for ExxonMobil and questionable ties to foreign corporations and government officials whose interests and values often conflict with those of the United States falls well short of the high standards required to be our nation’s top diplomat.
The full text of the letter and list of signers is below.
Please let us know if we can be of additional assistance as your office considers its position on this important issue.
Sincerely,
Stephen Miles
Director, Win Without War
January 10, 2017
The Honorable Bob Corker
Chairman
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Ben Cardin
Ranking Member
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Corker and Ranking Member Cardin:
We are writing you with deep concern about the nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State. While we understand that the President-elect chooses a Cabinet, the Constitution clearly vests the Senate with an appropriate check to ensure that key appointees meet the highest standards.
Mr. Tillerson’s nomination raises deep and unanswered concerns regarding corporate influence over the government, personal conflicts of interest, and questionable ties to foreign governments and officials.
While hearings should address these concerns, given Mr. Tillerson’s known corporate record and his extensive ties to ExxonMobil and other corporations and foreign governments whose interests and values often conflict with those of the United States, we believe he does not meet the standards required of a Secretary of State.
Under Mr. Tillerson’s leadership, ExxonMobil has worked in opposition to U.S. interests abroad and ignored gross rights violations in Russia and other countries ruled by oligarchical and despotic regimes, in order to fill its oversized coffers and continue polluting our planet.
For example, under Mr. Tillerson’s leadership, ExxonMobil has made billions in Equatorial Guinea – a country with one of the worst corruption and human rights records. Rights groups have accused Exxon’s presence there of helping to prop up the dictatorship of President Teodoro Obiang, who has been in power for more than three decades.
Of particular concern are Mr. Tillerson’s close personal ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials and businessmen. These connections are deeply troubling, particularly given recent allegations that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on behalf of the President-elect.
Mr. Tillerson ties to Russia have not only benefited himself financially, they have often run directly counter to American interests and well-established foreign policy positions. Two years after Putin awarded Mr. Tillerson with the Kremlin’s Order of Friendship decoration, Mr. Tillerson personally lobbied the White House regarding sanctions imposed on Russia for its 2014 invasion of Ukraine, saying at the time that ExxonMobil’s skepticism of them was being heard “at the highest levels.” What’s more, ExxonMobil lobbyists, with Mr. Tillerson as CEO, successfully helped block a bill that would have made it more difficult to roll those sanctions back under the next administration. If confirmed, he will be a key voice in determining whether these sanctions are upheld, and whether ExxonMobil will once again gain access to oil fields that will generate hundreds of billions of dollars in returns.
Mr. Tillerson’s close ties to ExxonMobil – regardless of how far he distances himself from the oil giant – raise serious questions about whether his actions on the world stage will serve the interests of himself and ExxonMobil, or the American people. Likewise, his forty-one-year tenure there, including 10 years as its top executive, raises the question as to whether he has internalized the company’s values and interests so deeply that he is unable to shed them in favor of those of the United States.
Moreover, ExxonMobil is currently under investigation over accusations that, while Mr. Tillerson was CEO, it knowingly downplayed the risks of manmade climate change to the public and investors. Despite Mr. Tillerson’s statements that the threat from climate change is “real” and “serious,” he has also regularly spread misinformation on the issue, and under his leadership, ExxonMobil continued to fund climate science denial.
The next Secretary of State will be on the front lines of a host of national security and foreign policy issues for which Mr. Tillerson has no known position. To date, the American public has no knowledge of how the man who wants to be our chief diplomat would engage on crises ranging from Syria, Iraq, and an assertive China, to the erratic actions of a nuclear North Korea and numerous diplomatic challenges throughout the world. While we hope that Mr. Tillerson’s Senate hearings and written answers to questions for the record will supply some of this information, it is a stark departure from past practice to have a Secretary of State with so few publicly known positions on such key issues.
Our nation’s top diplomat must safeguard U.S. interests, promote American values, and protect and defend the rights of all people, regardless of nationality, race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Mr. Tillerson’s record demonstrates the opposite inclinations. At ExxonMobil, he has partnered with despots and human rights violators, and he has repeatedly acted against the interests of the United States. In short, the available evidence provides no basis to conclude that Mr. Tillerson will promote or safeguard U.S. interests and values, and it supplies overwhelming cause for skepticism.
We urge you to reject his nomination.
Sincerely,
350. org
ActionAid USA
Agricultural Missions, Inc.
Berks Gas Truth
Bonwood Social Investments
Brave New Films
Center for Biological Diversity
Center for International Environmental Law
Center for International Policy
Center for Sustainable Economy
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Clean Water Action
Climate Hawks Vote
Climate Law & Policy Project
Climate Reality Project
Communications Workers of America
Corporate Accountability International
Courage Campaign
CREDO
Daily Kos
Demand Progress
Do the Most Good Montgomery County
Earth Action, Inc.
Earth Day Network
ecoAmerica
Endangered Species Coalition
Friends of the Earth
Global Progressive Hub
Greenpeace USA
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Institute for Policy Studies, Climate Policy Program
Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA)
Jewish Voice for Peace
Jewish World Watch
League of Conservation Voters
Mainers for Accountable Leadership
MoveOn
MPower Change
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Natural Resources Defense Council
New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
Oil Change International
Pacific Environment
Peace Action
Power Shift Network
Public Citizen
Rachel Carson Council
Safe Climate Campaign
Sierra Club
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)
Southern Oregon Climate Action Now
Syria Relief and Development
The Center for Media and Democracy
We Belong Together
Win Without War
Young Evangelicals for Climate Action
cc: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Members

January 10, 2017