Oil chiefs set to testify at landmark congressional hearing

WASHINGTON – Top executives astatine ExxonMobil and different lipid giants are acceptable to attest astatine a landmark House proceeding Thursday arsenic legislature Democrats analyse what they picture arsenic a decades-long, industry-wide run to dispersed disinformation astir the relation of fossil fuels successful causing planetary warming.

Top officials astatine 4 large lipid companies are testifying earlier the House Oversight Committee, on with leaders of the industry’s apical lobbying radical and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Company officials were expected to renew their committedness to warring clime change.

The much-anticipated proceeding comes aft months of nationalist efforts by Democrats to get documents and different accusation connected the lipid industry’s relation successful stopping clime enactment implicit aggregate decades. The quality of the 4 lipid executives — from ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP America and Shell — has drawn comparisons to a high-profile proceeding successful the 1990s with baccy executives who famously testified that they didn’t judge nicotine was addictive.

Ad

"The fossil substance manufacture has had technological grounds astir the dangers of clime alteration since astatine slightest 1977. Yet for decades, the manufacture dispersed denial and uncertainty astir the harm of its products — undermining the subject and preventing meaningful enactment connected clime alteration adjacent arsenic the planetary clime situation became progressively dire,'' said Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif.

Maloney chairs the Oversight panel, portion Khanna leads a subcommittee connected the environment.

More recently, Exxon, Chevron and different companies person taken nationalist stances successful enactment of clime actions portion privately moving to artifact reforms, Maloney and Khanna charged. Oil companies often boast astir their efforts to nutrient cleanable vigor successful advertisements and societal media posts accompanied by sleek videos oregon pictures of upwind turbines.

The manufacture “spends billions to beforehand clime disinformation done branding and lobbying'' that is progressively outsourced to commercialized groups, “obscuring their ain roles successful disinformation efforts,” the lawmakers said.

Ad

Democrats person focused peculiar ire connected Exxon, aft a elder lobbyist for the institution was caught successful a concealed video bragging that Exxon had fought clime subject done “shadow groups” and had targeted influential senators successful an effort to weaken President Joe Biden’s clime agenda, including a bipartisan infrastructure measure and a sweeping clime and societal argumentation measure presently moving done Congress.

Keith McCoy, a erstwhile Washington-based lobbyist for Exxon, dismissed the company's nationalist expressions of enactment for a projected c taxation connected fossil substance emissions arsenic a “talking point.”

McCoy’s comments were made nationalist successful June by the biology radical Greenpeace UK, which secretly recorded him and different lobbyist successful Zoom interviews. McCoy nary longer works for the company, an Exxon spokesperson said past month.

Darren Woods, Exxon’s president and main executive, has condemned McCoy’s statements and said the institution stands by its committedness to enactment connected uncovering solutions to clime change.

Ad

Woods is among the main executives acceptable to attest Thursday, on with BP America CEO David Lawler, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth and Shell president Gretchen Watkins.

Casey Norton, an ExxonMobil spokesperson, said the institution has cooperated with the Oversight panel, adding: “ExxonMobil has agelong acknowledged that clime alteration is existent and poses superior risks.''

In summation to important investments successful “next-generation technologies,” the institution besides advocates for liable climate-related policies, Norton said.

“Our nationalist statements astir clime alteration are, and person been, truthful, fact-based, transparent and accordant with the views of the broader, mainstream technological assemblage astatine the time,'' helium said.

Maloney and Khanna compared tactics utilized by the lipid manufacture to those agelong deployed by the baccy manufacture to defy regularisation “while selling products that termination hundreds of thousands of Americans.″

Ad

The lipid industry’s “strategies of obfuscation and distraction span decades and inactive proceed today,″ Khanna and Maloney said successful calling the proceeding past month. The 5 largest publically traded lipid and state companies reportedly spent astatine slightest $1 cardinal from 2015 to 2018 “to beforehand clime disinformation done ‘branding' and lobbying,” the lawmakers said.

Bethany Aronhalt, a spokeswoman for API, said the group's president, Mike Sommers, welcomes the accidental to attest and "advance our priorities of pricing carbon, regulating methane and reliably producing American energy.”

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.