News & Analysis
May 2, 2024
The Department of Justice has all the evidence it needs to take action against Big Oil for their longtime lies to the public about climate change, a lawyer who led the federal racketeering case against the tobacco industry told members of Congress this week.
During a Senate Budget Committee hearing on “Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change” on Wednesday, Sharon Eubanks — the former director of the Tobacco Litigation Team at the Department of Justice — made direct comparisons between evidence that took down the tobacco industry in federal court and the trove of internal documents uncovered by investigations into the oil and gas industry’s climate deception.
“The behavior and goals of the tobacco industry and petroleum industry are quite similar, and for this reason there are many similarities in their liabilities,” Eubanks told the committee. “Both industries lied to the public and regulators about what they knew about the harms of their product and they lied about when they knew it.”
.@SenSanders If we had an industry that knowingly caused climate change and lied about it, how can we hold them accountable? @SharonYEubanks: RICO and other laws. When DOJ sued Big Tobacco, the companies were ordered to change the way they do business and pay for damages. pic.twitter.com/LBSod1UXmM
— Center for Climate Integrity (@climatecosts) May 1, 2024
The hearing came a day after Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Jamie Raskin jointly released thousands of pages of new internal oil industry documents that were obtained through a House Oversight Committee investigation that began in 2021 into Big Oil’s climate deception. The latest evidence showed once again how ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, and their trade associations continue to lie about their role in worsening climate change and prolonging the public’s dependency on oil and gas.
“During our probe, I’ve been struck by the parallels of Big Oil’s aggressive denialism about climate change and the tobacco industry's suppression of the truth about tobacco addiction,” House Representative Jamie Raskin told committee members.
“Fossil fuel companies publicly claim to be partners, if not leaders, in fashioning climate solutions, but our investigation exposed that as a fraud,” Raskin said. “Big Oil is not addressing the climate crisis, but profiting from it.”
Last summer, nearly two dozen House and Senate members wrote letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Department of Justice to either investigate or sue Exxon, Shell, and other fossil fuel companies for violating fraud, racketeering, and other federal laws. Following the hearing, the Senate Budget committee now has the opportunity to recommend that the DOJ investigate, and potentially sue, oil and gas majors for their climate fraud — a move endorsed by Eubanks.
“We should not waste time wringing our hands — we have documents that lay out what is currently happening,” Eubanks told members of Congress. “There exists solid evidentiary basis to support more information being gathered on these companies, just as the Department of Justice investigated the tobacco industry and ultimately filed a civil racketeering case.”
