When ExxonMobil announced it would “slow the pace of development” on a $10bn plastics plant along the Texas Gulf coast, the company blamed market conditions. But it wasn’t just the market applying pressure; it was a 77-year-old shrimper named Diane Wilson who refused to stay silent. Her fight exposes big oil’s latest survival plan: ramping up oil and gas production to create plastic.

I first met Wilson back in 2019 while tracking her historic lawsuit against Formosa Plastics, the Taiwanese petrochemical giant accused of dumping toxic plastic waste throughout coastal Texas. Billions of tiny plastic pellets were contaminating waterways, shorelines and even the soil itself.

When I spoke with her again a few months ago for A People’s Climate, a podcast from the Nation and Counterstream Media, she was still doing what she’s always done: holding power to account in the place she loves most. I’ve spent years covering the plastic industry’s impact on frontline communities, and Exxon’s delay isn’t a business decision to dismiss. It’s a strategic signal that the fossil-to-plastic pivot is facing growing, community-led resistance.

When Exxon arrived in Calhoun county late last year, Wilson recognized the playbook: a rubber-stamp process rushed through a school-board meeting – a requirement under Texas law for the tax abatement Exxon sought. She sued that same board in May, arguing it had violated Texas open-meeting laws in what she has called “a deliberate attempt to avoid public opposition”. A district judge agreed, striking down the board’s approval of the tax abatement in late September. Less than two weeks later,........

© The Guardian