Exxon CEO accused of lying about climate science
to congressional panel
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney likens oil company
bosses’ responses to those of tobacco industry at historic hearing
Darren Woods, chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil
Corporation, denied that there was an inconsistency between what the company
told the public and what Exxon scientists had privately warned.
Chris
McGreal
Thu 28 Oct
2021 22.05 BST
The chief
executive of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods, was accused of lying to Congress on
Thursday after he denied that the company covered up its own research about
oil’s contribution to the climate crisis.
For the
first time, Woods and the heads of three other major petroleum companies were
questioned under oath at a congressional hearing into the industry’s long
campaign to discredit and deny the evidence that burning fossil fuels drove
global heating. When pressed to make specific pledges or to stop lobbying
against climate initiatives, all four executives declined.
The chair
of the House oversight committee, Representative Carolyn Maloney, pressed Woods
about statements by his predecessor, Exxon CEO Lee Raymond, who in the 1990s
said the scientific evidence for climate change was “inconclusive” and that
“the case for global warming is far from air tight”. In 2002, Exxon ran
advertisements in the New York Times calling climate science “unsettled”.
Malone put
it to Woods that Exxon’s own scientists had repeatedly warned the company about
the threat from burning fossil fuels as far back as the 1970s.
“There is a
clear conflict between what Exxon CEO told the public and what Exxon scientists
were warning privately for years,” she said.
Woods
denied that Raymond or Exxon misled anyone.
“I do not
agree that there was an inconsistency,” he said.
Maloney
said the response reminded her of “another hearing that we had with the tobacco
industry”.
“They said
they did not believe that nicotine was addictive. Well, it came out that they
lied. Tobacco nicotine was very addictive. And now I’m hearing from you that
the science that was reported publicly, where your executives were denying
climate change, we know that your scientists internally were saying that it’s a
reality,” she said.
“So I was
hoping that you would not be like the tobacco industry was and lie about this.”
The heads
of the American operations of the other oil companies – Shell, Chevron and BP –
were also firm in resisting pressure to admit they misrepresented climate
science or deceived the public.
They each
said that they recognised global heating was a reality and a major challenge.
But the executives did not accept that their companies had failed to take it
seriously or that they were undermining attempts to cut greenhouse gases by
funding trade groups pouring millions of dollars into lobbying Congress against
tighter environmental laws.
“We accept
the scientific consensus,” said Michael Wirth, the CEO of Chevron. “Climate
change is real. Any suggestion that Chevron is engaged in disinformation and to
mislead the public on these complex issues is simply wrong.”
But Maloney
accused the oil companies of continuing the cover-up, including by hiding
documents. She said she would take the unusual step of issuing subpoenas to
force the firms to reveal what they knew.
“We need to
get to the bottom of the oil industry’s disinformation campaign and with these
subpoenas we will,” she said.
The oil and
gas industry, which spent about $100m on political lobbying last year, was
strongly backed by a number of Republicans on the committee who sought to
distract by denouncing Joe Biden’s energy policies.
Republicans
called their own witness, Neal Crabtree, who said he lost his job as a welder
within three hours of Biden being sworn in as president because the Keystone
pipeline was cancelled. Crabtree was used to portray Biden as colluding with
China and Russia against America’s oil industry.
The
highest-ranking Republican on the committee, Representative James Comer,
questioned the legitimacy of the investigation. He said the committee would be
better off spending its time investigating the White House’s handling of
inflation, illegal immigration and the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In a
hearing meant to focus on climate misinformation, several Republican members
openly questioned the urgency of the climate crisis. Representative Clay
Higgins called the hearing “a threat from within” because the American way of
life was built on oil.
Another
Republican member said Maloney owed the oil executives an apology for intruding
on their right to free speech by pressing them to make a commitment that their
firms will “no longer spend any money, either directly or indirectly, to oppose
efforts to reduce emissions and address climate change”.
None of the
executives would make a direct commitment.
Maloney
showed the hearing a video secretly recorded by Greenpeace earlier this year of
an Exxon lobbyist describing the oil giant’s backing for a carbon tax as a
public relations ploy intended to stall more serious measures to combat the
climate crisis.
“How did
Exxon respond?” asked Maloney. “Did they come clean about this shocking
conduct? No. Mr Woods called Mr McCoy’s comments inaccurate and then they fired
him. And they are obviously lying like the tobacco executives were.”
While the
oil executives largely maintained a united front, Representative Ro Khanna, a
leading critic of the petroleum industry on the committee, drew out testimony
that showed the European companies, Shell and BP, were working to cut
production while the US firms, Exxon and Chevron, intended to increase drilling
in the coming years.
Wirth said
that his company would raise oil production while cutting carbon admissions.
The hearing
also questioned the leaders of two powerful lobby groups accused of acting as
front organisations for big oil, the American Petroleum Institute and the US
Chamber of Commerce.
Khanna
noted that API was heavily funded by oil company money as it resisted the
expansion of infrastructure for electric vehicles and opposed a methane fee
backed by Biden, including flooding Facebook with advertisements in recent
months.
Khanna
challenged each of the oil executives in turn to resign from API over its
position on electric vehicles or to tell it to stop its opposition to a methane
fee. All of them declined to do so.
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