Louisiana’s energy industry sees a congressional probe into whether oil companies have minimized the effects of fossil fuel burning on climate change as a partisan attack against companies working to revive the U.S. economy.
Last week, the House Oversight and Reform Committee sent letters to top executives at ExxonMobil Corp., BP America Inc., Chevron Corp. and Shell Oil Co. and sought records on what the committee sees as an industry-wide effort to mislead consumers about the role of oil and gas in climate change.
The panel also asked the CEOs to appear at an Oct. 28 committee hearing. In addition, letters also sent to executives at the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"The Louisiana Oil & Gas Association stands with all industry stakeholders against these blatant partisan attacks by House Democrats,” LOGA said in a statement emailed to the Louisiana Record. “The fact remains that the oil and gas industry has contributed to the reduction of emissions within the United States through tens of billions of dollars in green energy investment, from carbon capture & sequestration (CCS) to major wind energy projects.”
The hearings will do little except cater to environmentalists in the Democratic Party and put the nation’s independence from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at risk, the statement says.
“While Democrats in Washington are playing political games to bolster their talking points and create media soundbites, our industry is driving the resurgence of the American economy and creating new jobs every day for hard-working Americans,” LOGA said in the email.
The committee alleges that from 1990 to 2019, the world’s climate crisis accelerated while the four energy giants collected $2 trillion in profits. The industry enlisted third parties to generate public doubts about the role of fossil fuels in global warming during this time period, spending billions to disseminate “disinformation,” the committee said in a news release.
The recent disclosure of a video showing an ExxonMobil lobbyist speaking about how the company argued against established climate science through “shadow groups” has become one of the committee’s points of contention in moving forward on the investigation.
The Record is owned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform.