Report reveals Rice’s lobbying firm’s ties to fossil fuel interests

By James Cancelarich     1/21/25 10:21pm

Rice’s cancer research and sustainability goals are hypocritical to its use of a lobbying firm associated with fossil fuel interests, according to a recent report by environmental group F-Minus.

The report, titled “Hypocrisy 101,” and published Jan. 14, highlights that Cornerstone Governmental Affairs, the lobbying firm that Rice uses, also represents four fossil fuel companies in Texas, including Vistra, its subsidiary Luminant Generation Company and the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, a trade organization representing the oil and gas industry operating in the Gulf Coast.

The report points out apparent conflicts in Rice’s aims, such as the $45 million awarded to Rice researchers by an agency within the Department for Health and Human Services. The award funded research into implant technology to decrease cancer-related deaths. Some of LMOGA’s member companies operate in Louisiana’s “cancer alley,” where census tracts experience cancer rates up to seven times higher than the national average. 

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Nathan Cook, senior director of government relations for the office of public affairs, did not comment specifically on Cornerstone’s association with fossil fuel interests.

“Cornerstone Government Affairs supports our nonpartisan government relations efforts to advance Rice’s legislative priorities,” Cook wrote in an email to the Thresher. “The relationship and work adhere to all conflict of interest and public reporting policies.”

The report detailed other such “conflicts of interest” in Rice’s sustainability goals. The report wrote that in 2022, Rice announced its plan to become carbon neutral by 2030. Vista, one of the clients of Cornerstone, emitted 98.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from produced and purchased electricity in 2021. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.

In states with more extensive lobbying disclosure than Texas, F-Minus found examples of universities’ lobbying firms, lobbying against university or research interests on behalf of other clients.

For example, the report details a Stanford University report that warned of the risk of gas stoves which helped convince the California State Assembly to pass a bill requiring health warnings on gas stoves. Stanford’s own lobbying firm, on behalf of Southern California Gas, lobbied against the bill, which was then vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Texas, unlike some other states, does not disclose bill numbers or bill positions for its lobbying, and, according to F-Minus, does not have an entirely clear disclosure system for lobbyist compensation. James Browning, executive director of F-Minus, said that the lack of evidence for such instances in Texas does not necessarily mean that they are not occurring.

“Even without bill numbers, Cornerstone clients like the Louisiana Midcoast Oil and Gas Association are extensively exposing people to carcinogens in [Louisiana]’s Cancer Alley,” Browning wrote in an email to the Thresher. “And in [Texas,] the company’s Martin Lake Coal Plant is a leading emitter of mercury and sulfur dioxide pollution. And finally, it’s important to note that fossil fuels are responsible for exposing people to carcinogens from extraction sites, compressor stations, and from gas stoves.”

Browning said that F-Minus’s research was inspired, in part, by student, faculty and donor pressure to cut ties with fossil fuel interests. He cited the University of Washington’s 2022 decision to exit direct fossil fuel investments as an example.

“So for all the good Rice can do with the $45 million grant for cancer research that it received in 2023, it is choosing to give its good name and its money to firms whose clients are contributing to a climate-cancer crisis,” Browning wrote.

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