Well you brought up Montana which immediately made me think of Libby Montana and what a tragedy that is. That the company minimized the risk of asbestos and used experts to justify their positions. Finally, and I can't believe how long it took (yr 2000 or something like that), action was taken. But obviously it was too late for hundreds.
I believe one should error on the side of caution and if they had in Libby, Montana, the mines would have been shut down much earlier and thousands of lives might not have been negatively effected. Of course the mines were big business and employing many and paying well, so I'm sure anyone yelling about the risks ran into a lot of opposition. Money control a lot in our capitalist society so excuse me if I am skeptical about oil money being used for studies on the environment.
If tl/dr then:
Point-Throughout history there have been examples of big business putting profits ahead of the safety and welfare of people. Isn't it possible that information being put out by oil companies through experts do not have the welfare of people or the planet in mind.