News & Analysis
August 1, 2023
Members of Congress are stepping up calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to take action against oil companies for their decades of climate deception. In two letters sent in the past week, nearly two dozen House and Senate members urged the DOJ to either investigate or sue Exxon, Shell, and other Big Oil companies for violating fraud, racketeering, and other federal laws.
“The available evidence that these companies lied — and continue to lie — to the public about their central role in exacerbating the climate crisis demands further investigation,” Democratic members wrote in a July 25 letter organized by Representative Ted Lieu and Senator Richard Blumenthal. “If the allegations against ExxonMobil, Shell, and other major fossil fuel companies are true, their coordinated efforts to deceive Americans constitute the most consequential deception campaign in history, with potentially existential consequences for our planet.”
In a July 31 letter spearheaded by Senator Bernie Sanders, four Senators called on the DOJ to “bring suits against the fossil fuel industry for its longstanding and carefully coordinated campaign to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of massive profits.”
Today, @SenWarren, @SenMarkey, @SenJeffMerkley and I sent a letter to Attorney General Garland urging the DOJ to bring lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry for its longstanding campaign to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of massive profits. pic.twitter.com/2uQcu2uge5
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) July 31, 2023
Lieu and Sanders first asked the DOJ to investigate Big Oil in 2015, after InsideClimate News first broke the story that Exxon knew for decades that their products would fuel climate change. Since then, a growing number of Congress members have been urging the DOJ to act. During Attorney General Merrick Garland’s confirmation hearing in 2021, Blumenthal told Garland that “nothing could be so important” as the DOJ taking action to hold Exxon and other companies accountable “for lying to the American public about the devastating effects of these products on climate change.”
The DOJ filed a brief earlier this year in support of the communities that have filed climate accountability lawsuits against oil and gas companies, but the department has yet to announce its own actions to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable.
Shell and ExxonMobil knew their products fueled the #ClimateCrisis, but lied to the public to protect their profits.
— Rep. Ted Lieu (@RepTedLieu) July 25, 2023
READ: Our bicameral letter, co-led by @SenBlumenthal, urging @TheJusticeDept to investigate whether their actions violated federal law. https://t.co/pg3vP9jPgm
The July 25 letter was signed by:
Representative Ted Lieu
Representative Katie Porter
Representative Kathy Castor
Representative Primila Jayapal
Representative Kim Schrier, M.D
Representative Matt Cartwright
Representative Jared Huffman
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Representative Mark DeSaulnier
Representative Cori Bush
Representative Rashida Tlaib
Representative Kevin Mullin
Representative Nanette Diaz Barragán
Senator Richard Blumenthal
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Senator Edward J. Markey
Senator Mazie K. Hirono
Senator Peter Welch
Senator John Fetterman
Senator Alex Padilla
The July 31 letter was signed by:
Senator Bernie Sanders
Senator Edward J. Markey
Senator Jeffrey A. Merkley
Senator Elizabeth Warren
