"David O'Reilly's Turbulent Tenure at Chevron Helm to Finally End."

San Francisco, California -- Global Exchange, a more than 20-year-old human rights advocacy organization, greeted today's announcement of Chevron CEO David O'Reilly's retirement, effective December 31, 2009, with relief and hope.

"David O'Reilly built Chevron into one of the world's most dangerous corporations," said Chevron Program Director, Antonia Juhasz. "Global Exchange greets the announcement of O'Reilly's retirement with hope that Chevron will finally change course, shed its destructive practices, and become the conscientious corporate citizen its advertisements claim it to be."

"Chevron's operations have been so devastating under O'Reilly's helm," Juhasz explained, "that they led to the formation of the largest and most organized network of communities organizing against one specific oil company in history—a growing network of which The Chevron Program at Global Exchange is proud to be a part."

Juhasz explained that, "while marketing Chevron as 'part of the solution' to global warming, Chevron is leading the fight against meaningful climate legislation, including busing its employees to a fake astroturf 'Citizen Energy Rally' organized by the American Petroleum Institute, of which Chevron is a part. This is part of an old pattern, as Chevron was leading a public relations campaign until 2002 against the very notion that 'global warming' even exists."

Juhasz then recounted some of the highlights of David O'Reilly's tenure. Juhasz is the lead author and editor of The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report, released in May 2009, from which these facts are drawn and where citations and further details can be found. Key Findings of the report can be accessed here.

During his tenure, David O'Reilly:

• Made himself one of the highest paid CEOs in the country. David O'Reilly is the 15th highest paid U.S. CEO, with nearly $50 million in total 2008 compensation an over $120 million over the last five years.

• Led the fight to keep Chevron's money out of California's hands. While the state has suffered one of the worst financial crises in its history, Chevron has spent years successfully fending off an oil severance tax which, if enacted, could bring in as much as $1 billion a year or more to the state's coffers.

• Hired William J. Haynes, "torture lawyer," as chief corporate counsel. As the Department of Defense's General Counsel, Haynes wrote or supervised memos for the Bush administration that have since been described as "torture memos," authorizing harsh treatment for detainees at Guantanamo.

• Embroiled the company in a sex scandal in Colorado. In September 2008, the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) found that employees of Chevron, among other companies, provided improper gifts and engaged in improper relationships with DOI employees. The case remains under investigation.

• Maintained a stranglehold on California and U.S. consumers. Chevron helps maintain California's oil oligopoly, with just four refiners owning nearly 80% of the market and six refiners, including Chevron, owning 85% of the retail outlets, selling 90% of the gasoline in the state. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently revived a class action lawsuit against Chevron for conspiring to fix gasoline prices in California by limiting supply. Chevron and five other companies control almost 60% of the U.S. refining market and with four others, controls more than 60% of the nation's gas stations.

• Misrepresented Chevron as an "alternative energy" company. Chevron spent, at best, less than 3% of its total capital and exploratory expenditures on clean alternative energy in 2008. At the same time, it operates a coal company—the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel; a chemical company producing a host of toxic and environmentally destructive chemicals and products; increased operations in the most environmentally destructive methods of oil production, including in the Canadian tar sands and Midwestern shale regions; and has lead the fight to permit offshore drilling off all U.S. shores.

• Partnered with some of the world's most notorious and brutal governments and militaries in Nigeria, Burma, Angola, Chad and Iraq, often leading to mass human rights and environmental abuses, and even with deadly results.

• Refused to use Chevron's vast resources to invest in the safest, most sophisticated, and superior methods of operations, choosing instead to allow environmental devastation and public health abuses in Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Angola, the Philippines, Alaska, California, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and elsewhere.

• Remained the only major U.S. Corporation operating in Burma, and in direct partnership with the Burmese military. Its Yadana Gas project is the single largest source of income for the Burmese junta.

• Chose to fight, rather than help, the people of Ecuador in their decades-long battle in the wake of Texaco's (purchased by O'Reilly) mass environmental and public health catastrophe in their country.

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