The Greens have warned that fossil fuel companies must not be allowed to “gag scientists” after lawyers representing victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill claimed to have uncovered evidence of the Australian government’s independent science agency collaborating with BP on academic studies.
The Downs Law Group has said documents it received as part of litigation against BP reveal the oil company’s lawyers reviewed and gave corporate approval to nine scientific studies by CSIRO employees, raising questions about the studies’ impartiality.
CSIRO has rejected the law firm’s claim that BP “was ghostwriting” the papers. A CSIRO spokesperson said it “stands by its research” and rejected suggestions it had breached ethical standards.
“BP did not have final approval or veto rights in respect of the CSIRO’s research presentations and publications relating to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” they said.
Although CSIRO acknowledged in the studies that survey work was “funded by BP America”, Downs Law Group argues BP’s oversight of studies was “either undisclosed or insufficiently disclosed”.
The environmental tort and class action law firm has written to CSIRO, demanding it release all agreements, contracts and communications with BP.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 was the largest ever in US waters. After BP settled a class action for acute conditions, those affected by chronic conditions such as sinusitis and cancer are still entitled to individually sue BP.
The Downs Law Group, involved in more than 100 cases against the company, said that documents from pretrial discovery – that it described as the “BP Papers” – reveal dealings with third-party contractors hired to do industrial hygiene monitoring, including CSIRO.
A CSIRO spokesperson said its research “included data on sea-floor seepage and changes in the dissolved hydrocarbon content of shallow waters during and shortly after the Deepwater Horizon incident”.
The BP Papers include a publication tracker that Downs Law Group said appears “to show BP’s attorneys involved in ghostwriting and ghost-managing the submission of [Deepwater Horizon oil spill]-related public presentations and papers subsequently published in scientific journals”.
These include nine studies in which CSIRO employees are either primary authors or co-authors “wherein BP’s involvement was either undisclosed or insufficiently disclosed”.
“What was never disclosed was the apparent involvement of BP’s attorneys in the review and approval of these studies,” the lawyers wrote.
Without access to drafts of the articles it is impossible to determine whether and what changes to content may have been suggested by BP.
But the publication tracker, seen by Guardian Australia, notes BP comments about CSIRO studies, including:
“[W]e do not have a revised final with CSIRO authors”
“Planned for December. Approved?”
“Appear to be other papers that CSIRO is drafting and I will need confirmation they are indeed under way so I can track them and make sure they go through the review process”
“CSIRO paper from last year which made it through the review process and was approved”
In the letter to CSIRO, dated 8 November, the Downs Law Group attorney Jason Clark wrote that the internal documents and communications “appear to demonstrate BP’s manipulation of the science”.
The BP Papers “serve as a peek behind the curtain of secrecy that too often shrouds public health lawsuits”, he wrote, revealing BP’s intent to “promote the false premise” in scientific literature that the oil spill and BP’s response were “less harmful” to people and the environment.
“These emails, studies, reports, and memoranda among BP employees and contractors appear to depict BP’s potential playbook to ‘manufacture doubt’ about scientific evidence that finds petrochemicals are dangerous and toxic.”
Clark warned that CSIRO’s “potential involvement” in BP’s review process “seems in stark contrast” to its scientific mission and the principles of “honesty, rigour, transparency, fairness, respect and accountability” in the Australian code for the responsible conduct of research.
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said “scientific institutions must be free to investigate environmental and climate disasters without fossil fuel corporations throwing sand in the gears”.
“Fossil fuel corporations have form trying to gag scientists and we need to see their outsized influence called out and cut off,” he told Guardian Australia.
“The independence of our scientific institutions must be protected from meddling by multibillion-dollar fossil fuel corporations – that’s the only way we’ll be able to hold these corporations accountable for their climate destruction.”
The CSIRO spokesperson said the organisation “maintains high standards of research ethics and conduct consistent with the principles and responsibilities” of the code.
“CSIRO’s research formed part of the significant multiparty efforts to respond to one of the worst environmental disasters in recent history and the largest offshore oil spill in US history,” the spokesperson said.
“That research involved gathering dissolved hydrocarbon content data from near surface waters during and shortly after the Deepwater Horizon incident.
“Follow-up work included the study of naturally occurring hydrocarbon seeps in the Mississippi Canyon in the vicinity of the incident.
“Research undertaken by CSIRO is conducted independently and underpinned by rigorous standards, including the peer review process.”
A spokesperson for BP said it “does not comment on ongoing legal proceedings”.
