Leaked Cables Reveal Chevron Lobbying Efforts

(CN) - Chevron tried to shake off multibillion-dollar environmental claims in Ecuador by lobbying government officials, even as it blasted opponents for allegedly playing to the courts' corrupt and political side, according to diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks.
A provincial court in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, slapped Chevron with an $18.2 billion penalty in February to remediate decades of damage to the Amazon caused by oil drilling. Chevron's predecessor, Texaco, had drilled there from 1964 to 1992, and the court found it had decimated the rainforest and groundwater by dumping billions of gallons of oil in a region home to 30,000 people.
Chevron was pulled into a decade-old lawsuit over the spill when it acquired Texaco in 2001.

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