Press Releases
September 14, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. — New documents obtained as part of a U.S. House committee’s ongoing investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s long-running campaign to spread climate disinformation show that industry executives privately contradicted their companies’ public positions on climate issues, according to reporting from The New York Times.
The documents quoted show Shell employees saying that the company’s heavily publicized commitment to “net zero” emissions “has nothing to do with our business plan,” and Exxon pressing an industry group to delete language from a policy statement that could “could create a potential commitment to advocate on the Paris Agreement goals,” and BP executives joking about extreme-heat records.
The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform will hold its latest hearing into Big Oil’s climate disinformation tomorrow, Thursday, September 15, at 9 a.m. ET.
The Oversight committee said board members from the companies declined to attend tomorrow’s hearing.
Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, released the following statement:
“These revelations are the latest evidence that oil giants keep lying about their commitments to solve the climate crisis and should never be trusted by policymakers.
“First, their own documents showed that oil and gas companies lied about their product’s role in causing climate change. Now, more internal documents reveal that they are lying about their commitment to solving it. If there is one thing consistent about the oil and gas majors’ position on climate, it’s their utter inability to tell the truth.
“As Americans pay the price for deadlier and costlier climate disasters, it’s outrageous that board members from the companies fueling the climate crisis and making record profits refused to attend a hearing to answer questions from members of Congress.”
“We applaud the House Oversight committee for its continued work to hold oil and gas corporations accountable for their climate deception.”
Background:
In an October 2021 House Oversight hearing, executives from Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, and the American Petroleum Institute refused to commit under oath that their companies would stop spending money to oppose efforts to reduce emissions and combat climate change.
Since 2017, the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia, as well as 20 city and county governments in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Washington, have filed lawsuits to hold major oil and gas corporations accountable for deceiving the public about their products’ role in climate change.