Exxon CEO denies spreading false info
Oil executives counter climate change claims
WASHINGTON – Exxonmobil's chief executive said Thursday that his company “does not spread disinformation regarding climate change” as he and other oil company chiefs countered congressional allegations the industry concealed evidence about the dangers of it.
Testifying at a landmark House hearing, CEO Darren Woods said Exxonmobil “has long acknowledged the reality and risks of climate change, and it has devoted significant resources to addressing those risks.”
The oil giant's public statements on climate “are and have always been truthful, fact-based ... and consistent” with mainstream climate science, Woods said.
Woods was among top officials at four major oil companies testifying Thursday as congressional Democrats investigate what they describe as a decades-long, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming.
The much-anticipated hearing before the House Oversight Committee comes after months of public efforts by Democrats to obtain documents and other information on the oil industry's role in stopping climate action over multiple decades. The appearance of the four oil executives – from Exxonmobil, Chevron, BP America and Shell – has drawn comparisons to a highprofile hearing in the 1990s with tobacco executives who famously testified they didn't believe nicotine was addictive.
“The fossil fuel industry has had scientific evidence about the dangers of climate change since at least 1977. Yet for decades, the industry spread denial and doubt about the harm of its products – undermining the science and preventing meaningful action on climate change even as the global climate crisis became increasingly dire,” said Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Ro Khanna, D-calif.
“For far too long, Big Oil has escaped accountability for its central role in bringing our planet to the brink of a climate catastrophe. That ends today,” said Maloney, who chairs the Oversight panel.
“This hearing is just the start of our investigation,” added Khanna, who leads a subcommittee on the environment.
The committee released a memo Thursday charging that the oil industry's public support for climate reforms has not been matched by meaningful actions, and that the industry has spent billions of dollars to block reforms.
“Today's staff memo shows Big Oil's campaign to ‘greenwash' their role in the climate crisis in action,” Maloney said. “These oil companies pay lip service to climate reforms, but behind the scenes they spend far more time lobbying to preserve their lucrative tax breaks.''
Maloney and other Democrats have focused particular ire on Exxon, after a senior lobbyist for the company was caught in a secret video bragging that Exxon had fought climate science through “shadow groups” and had targeted influential senators in an effort to weaken President Joe Biden's climate agenda, including a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a sweeping climate and social policy bill currently moving through Congress.
Keith Mccoy, a former Washingtonbased lobbyist for Exxon, dismissed the company's public expressions of support for a carbon tax on fossil fuel emissions as a “talking point.”
His comments were made public in June by the Greenpeace UK, which secretly recorded him and another lobbyist in Zoom interviews.