Democrats Call Oil Giants to Testify on Climate Campaign
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Congressional Democrats are calling top executives at ExxonMobil and other oil giants to testify at a House hearing as lawmakers investigate what they say is a long-running, industrywide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming.
The House Oversight Committee on Sept. 16 requested that executives at ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell testify at a hearing next month, along with leaders of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying group, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“We are deeply concerned that the fossil fuel industry has reaped massive profits for decades while contributing to climate change that is devastating American communities, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and ravaging the natural world,” Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to oil executives.
The fossil fuel industry has spread lies and disinformation for decades about its own role in fueling the climate crisis. @RepRoKhanna and I are demanding their internal docs about these efforts and are calling for the heads of these companies to testify before @OversightDems. https://t.co/3g3uzcvYbw — Carolyn B. Maloney (@RepMaloney) September 16, 2021
“We are also concerned that to protect those profits, the industry has reportedly led a coordinated effort to spread disinformation to mislead the public and prevent crucial action to address climate change,” they wrote. Khanna, chairman of Oversight’s environment subcommittee, has been pressing the oil industry for months for documents and other information on its role in stopping climate action.
Khanna has been focusing on Exxon after a senior lobbyist for the company was caught in a secret video bragging that Exxon had fought climate science through “shadow groups” and had targeted influential senators in an effort to weaken President Joe Biden’s climate agenda.
The comments by Washington-based lobbyist Keith McCoy were made public in June by the environmental group Greenpeace UK, which secretly recorded McCoy and another lobbyist in Zoom interviews.
Darren Woods, Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, condemned McCoy’s statements and said the company stands by its commitment to work on finding solutions to climate change.
Woods is among the executives the House panel hopes to question at an Oct. 28 hearing, along with BP America CEO David Lawler, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth and Shell president Gretchen Watkins.
We’re announcing a series of agreements with fellow sector leaders @AdnocGroup & @Masdar that will look to explore low carbon opportunities for the UK & UAE by using innovative energy solutions. 3 companies, 2 countries & a shared commitment to the future. — bp (@bp_plc) September 16, 2021
Maloney and Khanna said in a statement that ExxonMobil and other oil companies “have worked to prevent serious action on global warming by generating doubt about the documented dangers of fossil fuels and misrepresenting the scale of their efforts to develop alternative energy technologies.’’ They compared the tactics to those deployed by the tobacco industry to resist regulation “while selling products that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.’’
The oil industry’s “strategies of obfuscation and distraction span decades and still continue today,’’ Khanna and Maloney said. The five largest publicly traded oil and gas companies reportedly spent at least $1 billion from 2015 to 2018 “to promote climate disinformation through ‘branding and lobbying,’ ” the lawmakers wrote.
A spokesperson for Exxon could not immediately be reached Sept. 16.
Bethany Aronhalt, a spokeswoman for API, said the group “welcomes the opportunity to testify again before the House Oversight Committee and advance our priorities of pricing carbon, regulating methane and reliably producing American energy.” API President Mike Sommers was among those invited to testify next month.
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