By Lori Lee
NDG Contributing Writer
Rep. Jamie Raskin and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, recently requested the Attorney General’s office investigate decades of misinformation by the fossil fuel industry to obfuscate the environmental effects of fossil fuel. The action last month came in the form of a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which followed the committee’s own three-year investigation and a May Senate Budget hearing on the matter.
The joint investigation charged that ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell Oil, BP America, the American Petroleum Institute (API), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, pledged to reduce emissions and to transition from oil, all the while striving to secure the continued use of fossil fuels decades into the future. As stated by one BP official in a 2019 email released after the investigation, goals for net zero emissions put certain assets too much at risk.
At an October 2021 hearing, leaders from the six entities acknowledged the central role of fossil fuels in climate change and the dire threat to humanity but refused to pledge meaningful actions to prevent it.
In April, Raskin made public over 4,500 documents detailing efforts to keep the public in the dark despite industry knowledge of massive harms. These documents revealed efforts to mislead about the benefits of carbon capture and biofuels. The documents also demonstrated how partnerships with academic institutions were used to lend credibility to deceptive campaigns.
Raskin compared the complex scheme to the deceptive practices of the tobacco industry, which resulted in lawsuits that spanned decades, as states sued big tobacco on behalf of citizens.
Despite valid subpoenas, all six entities—Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, API, and the Chamber—refused to fully comply with the investigation, making baseless legal arguments and flouting long standing congressional practices, Raskin and Whitehouse argued in the letter.
The subpoenaed companies also produced over 100,000 generic documents that were not responsive to the subpoenas.
Despite their noncompliance, Raskin and Whitehouse argued the documents do demonstrate deceptive practices by the oil industry to entrench the use of fossil fuels.
The evidence at hand warrants an executive branch investigation, said Raskin, especially considering the subpoenas that were disregarded by the six entities.
Dr. Geoffrey Supran of the University of Miami and Sharon Eubanks, former lead counsel in the civil RICO action against big tobacco, pointed out similarities between the fossil fuel and the tobacco industry. These industries both use the same four-step playbook, he said–learn of product dangers, scheme to deny the science, scaremonger about the economy, while using propaganda, a comparison that builds a heavy case for reviewing fossil fuels.
