House Oversight Committee accuses oil companies of ‘lying’ about climate actions

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The merchandise is simply a culmination of years of hearings and papers requests by the committee nether Democratic leadership, but its interaction is apt constricted by the GOP takeover of the House successful January.  | David McNew/Getty Images

Oil companies publically portrayed themselves arsenic committing to a cleanable vigor modulation adjacent arsenic they continued to marque significant, semipermanent investments successful fossil fuels production, according to a memo and interior manufacture documents the House Committee connected Oversight and Reform released Friday.

The merchandise is simply a culmination of years of hearings and papers requests by the committee nether Democratic leadership, but its interaction is apt constricted by the GOP takeover of the House successful January.

“Even though Big Oil CEOs admitted to my Committee that their products are causing a clime emergency, today’s documents uncover that the manufacture has nary existent plans to cleanable up its enactment and is barreling up with plans to pump much soiled fuels for decades to come,” Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said successful a statement. “It’s clip for the fossil substance manufacture to halt lying to the American radical and yet instrumentality superior steps to trim emissions and code the planetary clime situation they helped create.”

In a memo, the committee said the interior institution documents it had received via subpoena “demonstrate however the fossil substance manufacture ‘greenwashed’ its nationalist representation with promises and actions that lipid and state executives knew would not meaningfully trim emissions, adjacent arsenic the manufacture moved aggressively to fastener successful continued fossil substance accumulation for decades to come—actions that could doom planetary efforts to forestall catastrophic clime change.”

Maloney and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the caput of the situation subcommittee, held aggregate hearings, including 1 featuring the CEOs of Exxon and Chevron and the heads of European firms Shell and BP’s U.S. operations. The hearings aimed to exemplify the industry’s concern practices and usage of nationalist relations firms to overgarment themselves arsenic large players successful the cleanable vigor transition.

A spokesperson for Exxon blasted the committee’s merchandise arsenic cherry picking interior documents to formed the manufacture is simply a mediocre light.

“The House Oversight Committee study has sought to misrepresent ExxonMobil’s presumption connected clime science, and its enactment for effectual argumentation solutions, by recasting good intended, interior argumentation debates arsenic an attempted institution disinformation campaign,” institution spokesperson Todd Spitler said successful an email. “If circumstantial members of the committee are truthful definite they’re right, wherefore did they person to instrumentality truthful galore things retired of discourse to beryllium their point?”

Chevron and BP did not connection contiguous comment.

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