The oil billionaires are sweating. And it’s college students who are turning up the heat.
Texas recently passed a law to protect oil companies from divestment campaigns. It blacklists companies that have divested from fossil fuels because of what its sponsor, state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Texas, has called the “burgeoning fossil fuel discrimination movement.”
After the act passed in June, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a fossil-fuel-funded lobbying group, tried to replicate it nationwide, calling it the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act. ALEC-drafted bills have been introduced in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Indiana. A dozen other states have signaled support.
