Direct Lobbying Transparency
Overall Assessment | Comment | Score |
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Comprehensive | BP discloses climate-policy advocacy in considerable depth. It identifies a wide array of concrete measures it has engaged on, including the US “Inflation Reduction Act”, the “EPA methane regulations”, Washington State’s “Climate Commitment Act”, Australia’s “Safeguard Mechanism” reforms, the EU “Fit-for-55” and “CBAM” proposals, the UK “Energy Act 2023”, Illinois “Senate Bill 1289” on CCS, and many other named consultations and rulemakings across the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Korea. The company also explains how it lobbies. Examples include formal comment letters filed through Regulations.gov to the IRS and CEQ, oral and written testimony before state legislative committees, “face-to-face meetings with members of the Scottish Parliament, officials, ministers and special advisors”, submissions to European Commission public consultations, responses to Australian Senate inquiries, and public coalition letters to Congressional leadership. Targets are consistently specified—e.g., the US EPA, UK Government departments, the EU Commission, the Illinois and Indiana legislatures, the Korean MOTIE, and the Australian DCCEEW—making the avenues and audiences for influence clear. BP is equally explicit about the outcomes it seeks. It urges the EPA to “harness the power of innovative technology in leak detection and monitoring” and adopt a “flexible continuous monitoring framework”; asks the IRS to let “cleaning and conditioning equipment” qualify for biogas investment tax credits; proposes extending Australia’s Hydrogen Production Tax Incentive beyond 2040; supports an EU 2040 climate-neutrality target backed by an expanded ETS and fixed carbon-removal quotas; and backs Virginia and Pennsylvania joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It calls for clear CCS permitting rules in Illinois, a Low Carbon Fuel Standard in Australia, and carbon prices “at least $100 per tonne” to accelerate renewables. These detailed, measurable policy objectives demonstrate that BP not only describes what it supports but specifies the legal or regulatory changes it wants enacted. Taken together, the breadth of named policies, the precise description of engagement channels and targets, and the articulation of concrete legislative and regulatory outcomes represent a very high level of transparency in BP’s disclosure of its climate-related lobbying. | 4 |