Ro Khanna to Big Oil: "Spare us the spin" and just be human (2024)

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna urged oil executives to own up to their history on climate change and make this a turning point in climate crisis.

“Spare us the spin today. We have no interest in it,” Khanna, the chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment, said during his opening remarks. “Spin doesn’t work under oath.”

Khanna urged Big Oil not to follow in the footsteps of Big Tobacco executives when they testified in 1994.

“They too faced a choice. They chose to lie under oath, deny that nicotine is addictive,” Khanna said. “That didn’t turn out too well for them.”

The Democrat from California urged the oil executives to be better.

“Today, don’t think of yourselves as CEOs,” Khanna said. “Think of yourselves as human beings.”

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods flatly denied during his opening remarks that America’s largest oil company resorts to climate denialism.

“Exxon does not, and never has, spread disinformation regarding climate change,” Woods said in his prepared remarks. “Its public statements about climate change are, and have been, truthful, fact-based, transparent and consistent with the views of the broader, mainstream scientific community at the time.”

Woods also denied Exxon withheld information about climate change.

The comments stand in stark contrast with what Democrats and climate activists have argued and attempted to prove through documents.

The Exxon CEO argued the company contributed to the development of climate science and as science’s understanding of climate change evolved, Exxon “responded accordingly.”

“ExxonMobil has long acknowledged that climate change is real and poses serious risks,” Woods said.

The heads of six oil companies and major lobbying groups were just sworn in for their testimony in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee today.

They are:

Each of the executives will now given an opening statement. Woods is up first.

At the House Oil executives' hearing Thursday, Democratic lawmakers plan to argue that fossil fuel companies’ rhetoric on climate does not match their actions.

A staff memo from the committee states that while big fossil fuel companies and trade groups havebeen publicly stating their support for President Joe Biden’s decarbonization goals, they have continued to promote the extraction and use of dirty fossil fuels.

The memo findsExxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, and the American Petroleum together have spent $452.6 million in funds to lobbythe federal government since 2011.Of that, a meager portion has gone to lobbying to promote climate goals around the US Paris Agreement commitments to decarbonize and move away from fossil fuels, Oversight staff found.

Out of4,597 instances of lobbying since 2015 – the year the Paris Agreement was adopted – there were only 8 instances of lobbying on the Paris agreement. Stafffound that the oil companies were far more likely to lobby the federal government to lower their taxes.

The committeealso found the amount companies are investing in projects designed to lower their carbon emissions is small. The staff memo shows thatExxonMobil reportedly invested less than 1% of its capital expenditures into low-carbon projects between the year 2010 and 2018, while BP invested about 2.3% into low-carbon projects. The staff memo also statesthat Shell’s 2020 greenhouse gas emissions were “nearly twice that of the entire nation of Canada.”

The House Oversight and Reform Committee announced last month that it was launching an investigation into fossil fuel industry disinformation on the climate crisis, and invited the heads of six oil companies and major lobbying groups to testify in front of the committee today.

The committee's announcement came after reports the fossil fuel industry has participated in campaigns aimed at creating confusion about the cause of the climate crisis, or sowing skepticism in the science.

An undercover video released this summerappeared to show an ExxonMobil lobbyist admitting the company fought climate policy and the science behind it.

House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney of New York and Subcommittee on the Environment Chairman Ro Khanna of California sent letters to top executives at ExxonMobil, BP America, Chevron Corporation, Shell Oil Company, the American Petroleum Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce.

Lawmakers are planning to try to get oil company CEOs to admit they spread disinformation about climate change at the high-profile hearing, Khanna told CNN.

The investigation had already been taking place already for two months, Khanna said, and ExxonMobil has so far complied with the committee by producing "some very concerning documents."

Josh Hicks, a spokesperson for BP, told CNN the company's "ambition is to reach net zero by 2050 or sooner and to help the world get there. We are actively advocating for policies such as carbon pricing and regulating methane that will support the energy transition, the Paris climate agreement and a net zero world."

"Shell strongly supports the Paris Agreement and the need for society to transition to a lower carbon future, while extending the economic and social benefits of energy access to everyone," said Curtis Smith, a spokesperson for Shell.

In the letters to industry executives, the committee requested the companies and organizations to produce by Sept. 30 related documents going back to 2015, specifically detailing any efforts to undercut climate science and policy.

"They need to have answers for what climate disinformation is still going on with their companies — are they giving money to think tanks to try to influence studies?" Khanna told CNN. "Finally, they need to commit to stopping all of that."

Thursday's House hearing with oil executives comes just days after theUNEnvironment Programme (UNEP) released a damning report.

Nearly 200 countries have pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions to stave off the worst consequences of our warming planet, but there is still a huge gap between what's been promised and what scientists say is needed, according to areportby the organization.

With just days leftuntil leaders meet at theUN's COP26climatetalks in Glasgow, Scotland, dozens of nations have not yet officially updated their pledges to reduce emissions, as they are supposed to dounder the rules of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Of the G20 countries, which account for 80% of the world's emissions, only six nations have formally increased their targets. Thereportalso found that six G20 nations, including theUnited States, never met their older targets. The others were Canada, Australia, Brazil, South Korea and Mexico.

The planet has already warmed by around 1.2 degrees,scientists say. The latest set of globalclimatepledges, according to thereportreleased Tuesday, fall far short of what's necessary to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — a critical threshold that scientists say the world should remain below.

The annual "emissions gap"reportoutlines the difference between what countries have pledged and what more needs to be done. To limit warming to 1.5 degrees,UNEPreports the world needs to slash current emissions in half in the next eight years.

Thereportfound that new and updated pledges on emissions will only cut an additional 7.5% by 2030, but a 55% cut is needed to meet the goal of containing warming to 1.5 degrees.A 30% reduction would be needed to stay below 2 degrees.

Under countries' current fossil fuel emissions targets, it will continue to warm to 2.7 degrees, according toUNEP.

"Many of them sort of kick the can down the road, and we need to see not pledges anymore we actually need to see real action."

The House Oversight and Reform Committee launched an investigation in September into fossil fuel industry disinformation on the climate crisis.

The committee invited the heads of six oil companies and major lobbying groups to testify in front of the committee today.

These are the witnesses:

House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney of New York and Subcommittee on the Environment Chairman Ro Khanna of California sent letters to the top executives and requested the companies and organizations to produce by September 30 related documents going back to 2015, specifically detailing any efforts to undercut climate science and policy.