The Esso Fawley Oil Refinery, operated by Exxon Mobil Corp., stands in Fawley, U.K., on Thursday, May 14, 2020. Oils historic plunge below $0 a barrel pummeled portfolios, broke risk models and changed the way the worlds most important commodity is traded. Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg via Getty Images
On Thursday the House Oversight and Reform Committee declared that it would study climate change deception in the fossil fuel industry. The leaders of six oil firms and significant lobbying groups have been asked to speak before the committee next month.
The proclamation comes after allegations of involvement of the fossil fuel sector in operations to confuse the public about the origin of the climate catastrophe or to spur scientific doubt. An ExxonMobil lobbyist admitted in an undercover video published this summer that the business opposes climate policy and the science behind it.
Top executives at ExxonMobil, BP America, Chevron Corporation, Shell Oil Company, the American Petroleum Institute, and the US Chamber of Commerce received letters from House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney of Environment Chairman Ro Khanna of California, New York, and Subcommittee.
According to Khanna, lawmakers are arranging a high-profile hearing on October 28 to try to get oil company CEOs to admit to spreading climate change misinformation.
According to Khanna, the probe has been ongoing for two months, and ExxonMobil has so far cooperated with the committee by giving “some extremely troubling documents.”
Representatives of all six companies and lobbying groups, according to CNN, received the letter.
A BP official, Josh Hicks, told CNN that the company’s “The goal is to reach net-zero by 2050 or sooner, and to assist the rest of the world in doing so. We are actively working for measures that will promote the energy transition, the Paris Climate Agreement, and a net-zero future, such as carbon price and methane regulation.”
The committee requested that firms and groups disclose similar records dating back to 2015 by September 30 in the letters to industry executives, explicitly describing any efforts to undermine climate research and policy.
“You must know what environmental disenchantment your firms are still suffering – do they finance research tanks in order to increase the research performance? Khanna was proclaimed by CNN. “They must commit themselves to put an end to it all.”
By letter to ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, Congressmen voiced a profound concern that, while contributing to climate change, the fossil fuel business has “been making a tremendous profit for decades, which is harming American towns, devouring the natural world, and costing taxpayers billions of dollars.”
“We are particularly concerned about the company’s allegedly leading a systemic operation to spread misinformation so as to confuse and prevent ordinary publics from profiting from these major climatic improvements,” states the letter.
CNN said Khanna As part of President Joe Biden’s budget bill the hearing will fit with the planned schedule of the Congress for substantial climate and clean energy investments. The UN climate conference in Glasgow will also begin days before world leaders come together in order to debate the goals of reducing emissions of fossil fuels.
Khanna said to CNN. The hearing will take place on the same day that Congress plans to enact President Joe Biden’s budget blueprint, which includes huge climate and clean energy spending. It also comes only days before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, when world leaders will discuss goals for reducing fossil-fuel emissions.
