[Senate Hearing 118-294]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-294
DENIAL, DISINFORMATION, AND DOUBLESPEAK:
BIG OIL'S EVOLVING EFFORTS TO AVOID
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
May 1, 2024
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55-698 WASHINGTON : 2024
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COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, Chairman
PATTY MURRAY, Washington CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
RON WYDEN, Oregon MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
TIM KAINE, Virginia MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico RICK SCOTT, Florida
ALEX PADILLA, California MIKE LEE, Utah
Dan Dudis, Majority Staff Director
Kolan Davis, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Mallory B. Nersesian, Chief Clerk
Alexander C. Scioscia, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2024
OPENING STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman............................. 1,45
Prepared Statement........................................... 49
Senator Charles E. Grassley...................................... 4,42
Prepared Statement........................................... 52
STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Senator Ben Ray Lujan............................................ 12
Senator John Kennedy............................................. 14,38
Senator Tim Kaine................................................ 17
Senator Ron Johnson.............................................. 19
Senator Chris Van Hollen......................................... 21
Senator Jeff Merkley............................................. 23,41
Senator Bernard Sanders.......................................... 37
Senator Alex Padilla............................................. 44
WITNESSES
Hon. Jamie Raskin (MD-8), Ranking Member, Committee on Oversight
and Responsibility, U.S. House of Representatives.............. 7
Prepared Statement........................................... 55
Ms. Sharon Eubanks, Former Director, Tobacco Litigation Team,
U.S. Department of Justice..................................... 30
Prepared Statement........................................... 60
Addendum..................................................... 63
Mr. Geoffrey Supran, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Environmental
Science and Policy, and Director, Climate Accountability Lab,
University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric,
and Earth Science.............................................. 27
Prepared Statement........................................... 84
Dr. Ariel Cohen, Senior Fellow, The Atlantic Council, and,
Managing Director, Energy, Growth, and Security Program,
International Tax Investment Center............................ 32
Prepared Statement........................................... 340
Mr. Michael Ratner, Specialist in Energy Policy, Congressional
Research Service............................................... 35
Prepared Statement........................................... 354
APPENDIX
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
Hon. Raskin.................................................. 357
Ms. Eubanks.................................................. 358
Dr. Supran................................................... 359
Dr. Cohen.................................................... 379
Charts submitted by Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse.................. 381
Statement submitted for the Record by Senator Jeff Merkley....... 386
Statement submitted for the Record by Senator Chris Van Hollen... 460
Statement submitted for the Record by Senator John Kennedy....... 464
Documents submitted for the Record by Hon. Jamie Raskin.......... 468
DENIAL, DISINFORMATION, AND
DOUBLESPEAK: BIG OIL'S
EVOLVING EFFORTS TO AVOID
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2024
Committee on the Budget,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 9:02 a.m.,
in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room SD-216, Hon.
Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Whitehouse, Sanders, Merkley, Kaine, Van
Hollen, Lujan, Padilla, Grassley, Johnson, Braun, Kennedy and
R. Scott.
Also present: Democratic Staff: Dan Dudis, Majority Staff
Director; Jonathan Misk, Director of Oversight and Senior
Counsel; Melissa Kaplan-Pistiner, General Counsel; Aria
Kovalovich, Senior Investigator.
Republican Staff: Chris Conlin, Deputy Staff Director;
Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Jordan Pakula, Professional
Staff Member; Ryan Flynn, Budget Analyst.
Panel One Witness:
The Honorable Jamie Raskin (MD-8), Ranking Member,
Committee on Oversight and Accountability, U.S. House of
Representatives
Panel Two Witnesses:
Ms. Sharon Eubanks, Former Director, Tobacco Litigation
Team, U.S. Department of Justice
Mr. Geoffrey Supran, Ph.D., Associate Professor,
Environmental Science and Policy, and Director, Climate
Accountability Lab, University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of
Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science
Dr. Ariel Cohen, Senior Fellow, The Atlantic Council, and
Managing Director, Energy, Growth, and Security Program,
International Tax Investment Center
Mr. Michael Ratner, Specialist in Energy Policy,
Congressional Research Service
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WHITEHOUSE \1\
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\1\ Prepared statement of Chairman Whitehouse appears in the
appendix on page 49.
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Chairman Whitehouse. Good morning, everyone. I call to
order this hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. Today's
hearing is entitled ``Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak:
Big Oil's Evolving Efforts to Afford Accountability for Climate
Change.''
Today's hearing will feature two panels with a short 10-
minute break between them. The first panel will feature one
witness and the second panel will feature four. While we will
get to formal witness introductions shortly, I would express my
appreciation to Congressman Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, for appearing
before us today.
In terms of process, Ranking Member Grassley and I will
each have 15 minutes for opening remarks. Witnesses will have
up to 10 minutes each to deliver their oral testimony and
Senators will, as usual, have 5 minutes each for questions.
With that, I turn to my opening remarks.
Ranking Member Grassley, members of the Committee,
witnesses, and guests, welcome. It has not gone unnoticed that
my Republican colleagues disapprove of my work as Budget
Committee Chairman to warn about the economic and budgetary
dangers of disruption to our climate by fossil fuel emissions.
But the warnings are deadly serious across multiple vectors of
danger.
The witnesses we brought in were often accomplished experts
with fiduciary responsibilities. Yet, the response, almost
without fail, was mockery or changing the subject. Perhaps my
friends are right. Perhaps history will show that climate
upheaval caused by fossil fuel emissions won't have any serious
economic impact on our economy or our budget.
Perhaps history will show that the economic shocks from the
mortgage meltdown and from COVID, which produced a third of our
national debt, don't pre-figure an even worse economic shock
from our failure of stewardship on climate. Perhaps, but I
doubt it. I believe the economic danger is deadly real. You all
have your views and I have mine, and time will tell. History
will judge us.
In the meantime, I will try to fend off as best I can from
this chair the massive economic shocks we've been warned of.
Economic shock from disruptions in agriculture and shipping
whose early signals we already see in grocery store aisles.
Economic shock from unprecedented storm and wildfire damage
already burdening our emergency funding needs. Economic shock
from collapsing insurance markets already stressed in Florida,
Louisiana, coastal Texas, and California. And global economic
shock from the carbon bubble bursting and a fossil fuel
industry stubbornly oblivious to the dangers.
The obvious way to fend off these economic shocks is to
head off the cause of those shocks, fossil fuel emissions. To
head off that cause, we have to understand, first, what is
protecting enormous fossil fuel subsidies now pegged at
approximately $750 billion per year in America. And second,
what is preventing us from adopting policies to prevent the
worst dangers? That's what this hearing is about because what
is protecting the massive fossil fuel subsidies and what is
preventing policies to reduce the danger is the same thing, the
fossil fuel industry itself.
And when I say ``itself,'' I include its apparatus of
political influence, its armada of front groups spreading
disinformation, and its rivers of political dark money made
possible by the Citizens United decision.
This hearing looks at what the industry's own documents
reveal. That is why Ranking Member Raskin is here today. Two
and a half years ago, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed
documents from four oil companies and two fossil fuel trade
associations about their response to climate change. After much
delay and obstruction, the six entities produced more than two
million pages of documents.
During the 117th Congress, the Oversight Committee held
three hearings and released two public memoranda setting out
its initial findings. But more than a million pages of those
documents were not reviewed. This hearing is drawn from those
unreviewed documents.
Yesterday, Ranking Member Raskin made public approximately
4,500 new documents of interest from this latest review,
exposing new details about the fossil fuel industry's decades-
long campaign of denial and deception. The collective record
shows the fossil fuel industry going through four phases.
Phase 1 was its own scientists warning very clearly and
accurately about the climate dangers from unchecked fossil fuel
emissions. Fossil fuel industry scientists began ringing
climate alarm bells nearly 65 years ago. In one example, the
American Petroleum Institute had physicist Edward Teller of
Oppenheimer fame report that continued fossil fuel combustion
could raise sea level dozens of feet. The year was 1959. In
another, an Exxon senior scientist in 1977 reported to Exxon's
Management Committee ``general scientific agreement'' that
burning fossil fuels was changing the Earth's climate. There
were many such warnings.
Phase 2 was the industry looking at what those warnings
meant for profits and setting up an elaborate, covert operation
to undermine the very science its own scientists had revealed
and to bring industry influence to bear in politics to prevent
any remedies. It set up an armada of front groups depicted in
this graphic.\2\
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\2\ Chart submitted by Chairman Whitehouse appears in the appendix
on page 374.
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Phase 3 was the hoax phase. Using that elaborate, covert
operation to spread lies that climate change was a hoax, that
the science wasn't settled, and that remedies would do more
harm than good. In it's now infamous 1998 ``Victory Memo'', API
wrote that victory will be achieved when average citizens
``understand, recognize uncertainties in climate science with
the stated goal that climate change becomes a nonissue.'' The
Victory Memo laid out a massive campaign to spend millions of
dollars, but climate change would not become a nonissue. It
began to wreak visible havoc around the world. The hoax
strategy collapsed and Big Oil had to evolve from denial to
duplicity.
This hearing documents Phase 4, the industry pivoting to
pretending it is taking climate change seriously while secretly
undermining its own publicly stated goals. Phase 4 is nominally
expressing alignment with the Paris Agreement climate goals
while internally making them unachievable. Phase 4 is stating
emissions reduction targets too far out to matter and
internally not taking the steps necessary to meet them. Phase 4
is advertising your interest in climate safety technologies,
but refusing to put the investments behind them to make them
real.
Phase 4, put simply, is ``Climate Denial lite.'' A green-
leaning cover for the industry's continued covert operation
through dark money, phony front groups, false economics, and
relentless exertion of political influence to block meaningful
climate safety progress.
Our investigation uncovered public pledges undermined by
private memos. Public support for climate policies contradicted
by private emails. Rampant evidence of deception and corporate
double speak. Here's how it went. Play the tape.
(Video plays)
Chairman Whitehouse. Give us a moment to get through the
technical difficulties and we'll get back to the tape.
(Technical difficulties)
Chairman Whitehouse. Sorry, somehow, we have lost the
projector behind us, so we will resume playing only on the two
screens that are over here at the side of the room. My
apologies for the technical mishap.
(Video continues)
Chairman Whitehouse. My apologies to colleagues for the
extra time it took to solve the technical difficulties. I turn
now to Ranking Member Grassley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRASSLEY \3\
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\3\ Prepared statement of Senator Grassley appears in the appendix
on page 52.
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Senator Grassley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to air
some disappointment that I have regarding the process of this
hearing and underlying documents.
When I was Chairman of Finance during the Biden
investigation, I ensured that Ranking Member Wyden possessed
investigative records as they were produced. I also ensured
that Wyden's staff had access to the Trump Justice Department
classified facility to review records. Also, when I was Ranking
Member of Judiciary last Congress, Chairman Durbin ensured that
my staff possessed records during his Trump investigation.
Those are examples of how I have handled investigations and
what was expected over the decades.
Regarding the matter before us today, since August of last
year, and at times after that, my staff have asked the Majority
staff about possessing records and whether they'd issue a
report. My staff never received an answer. This past Sunday, 8
months after, we finally received a copy of these records.
Those records were obtained from House Democrats. On Tuesday
morning, the Majority issued a joint staff report with House
Democrats. The Majority failed to inform the Minority that they
were working with House Democrats on a report.
And the Washington Post published a story of this report
before I received it from Majority staff. So, the Majority gave
the report to outside interests before giving it to members of
the Committee. The Majority could have been transparent with
the Minority many months ago, as is normal course of business.
The Majority chose not to do so. This unfortunate series of
nontransparent events have undone years of investigative
precedent and around here I think process matters, equitable
treatment matters. The Majority has now created a new
investigative precedent and I will keep that in mind as my
investigations move forward.
Now, to the work of today's hearing and the work of the
Budget Committee and my usual comments about what the Budget
Committee ought to be doing and how climate change does or does
not work into it. But I always like to remind people about my
efforts of alternative energy. Thirty-one years ago, I was the
author of the Wind Energy Tax Credit, so I was for a time
called the Father of the Wind Energy Tax Credit. I guess now
I'm the grandfather of that tax credit.
Anyway, that was before global warming and climate change
became the big policy issue it was now. So, I like to think of
myself as being a little bit ahead of it. Now, for the 16th
time, the Budget Committee is holding a hearing related to
climate change rather than the nation's dismal fiscal outlook.
As I've said in the previous 15 hearings, the Budget Committee
ought to focus on the budget, plain and simple.
While this Committee continues to ignore our unprecedented
deficit, these are all top of mind of my constituents back in
Iowa. Over the break, I held 10 county meetings. In each and
every one, Iowans voiced their dismay at the state of our
nation's finances. They're furious about the Congress's utter
lack of attention to our bloated federal budget, and they
should be so concerned.
Just last week, the Commerce Department released its
economic update for the first quarter of 2024. This update
obliterates the Biden Administration's fake talking points on
how strong the economy is with inflation presumably contained
and it's not. The Feds preferred measure of inflation ticked
higher and now stands nearly double their 2 percent inflation
target.
At the same time, the economy grew far slower than
expected, registering its weakest performance since first
quarter of 2022. The Fed now finds itself between a rock and a
hard place. The economy is weak, but surging inflation requires
the Fed to maintain interest rates higher for longer, risking
an era of stagflation.
Left unchecked, our mounting national debt will
increasingly put upward pressure on interest rates and
inflation. This spells disaster for our economy and for the
consumer's pocketbook. Interest on the national debt is already
projected to cost the federal government more this year than
what's spent on national defense. Now, higher than previously
expected interest rates could cost us hundreds of billions more
in interest on the national debt.
Meanwhile, hardworking Americans will find themselves
priced out of the American dream of homeownership thanks to sky
high mortgage rates. At the same time embedded inflation means
that they'll find it increasingly hard to make ends meet. It's
no wonder Iowans are frustrated with Washington, D.C.'s lack of
attention to our nation's fiscal policy. So, yes, the Budget
Committee should focus on the budget.
Climate legislation isn't referred to the Budget Committee.
This Committee doesn't legislate climate change policy.
Democrats would rather accuse oil companies of conspiracy and
raise gas prices than work with Republicans to write a budget
or acknowledge the unpopularity of many climate change
policies.
And all the electric vehicle (EV) cars sitting on dealer
lots is evidence of these policies just not moving as people
here in Washington, D.C. thought they would. What's worse is
they assume the American people who don't want expensive and
burdensome climate regulations are too dumb to think for
themselves. I can't say what the fossil fuel industry has or
hasn't done, although I recently just saw it on the video given
to this Committee.
Especially in the last two days, that is true that the
Democrats have given me to review their thousands of pages of
so-called evidence, but I have a long record of disagreeing
with and tangling with Big Oil over various issues for three
decades over ethanol as just one issue of alternative energy
and also disagreeing with Big Oil on tax policies.
But it's also undeniable that the fossil fuels are critical
to our energy security and the energy security of our allies,
and we surely know how critical it is to China because while
we're cutting down on fossil fuel, they're building utility
plants fired by coal quite regularly.
We just appropriated $95 billion for a national security
supplemental package to aid Ukraine to defend itself against
Putin, also bolstering Taiwan's defenses to deter Chinese
aggression and restock Israel's air defense capabilities. I
voted for this package.
I also want to congratulate you, Mr. Chairman and Senator
Risch, for the inclusion of your repo for Ukrainians Act in
this package. I strongly support your efforts to ensure Russian
assets are repurposed for Ukrainian humanitarian assistance and
reconstruction. Our nation and our allies need a stable and
secure fossil fuel supply to stand up to the world's
authoritarian dictators.
Demonizing fossil fuels in the name of climate change won't
bolster our allies' national security. And this Committee's
failure to address our dire fiscal situation certainly won't
help in that regard either. This is why I've invited two
international energy experts to testify on the state of global
energy security. So, we welcome Dr. Cohen and Mr. Ratner. I
hope your testimony turns this spectacle into a learning
opportunity and I welcome all of today's witnesses, including
our colleague from the House of Representatives.
And Mr. Chairman, because of Finance, I'm going to be in
and out of this hearing, so I can go across the hall and ask
questions.
Chairman Whitehouse. Understood. And I thank my Ranking
Member for his statement. We don't always agree, but I do
always admire him. And I now turn to our first panel, which
features just one witness, a very distinguished one.
Congressman Jamie Raskin needs no introduction. Representing
Maryland's Eighth Congressional District in the House of
Representatives, Congressman Raskin serves as the Ranking
Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
During the 117th Congress, Representative Raskin served as
Chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties of the House Oversight Committee. He was also a
member of the Judiciary Committee, the Committee on House
Administration, the Rules Committee, the Select Committee on
the Coronavirus Crisis, and the Select Committee to Investigate
the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Prior to his election to the House, Congressman Raskin was
a constitutional law professor at American University
Washington College of Law for over 25 years, cofounding and
directing the Latin Legum Magister (LL.M) Program on Law and
Government.
Mr. Raskin, thank you very much for taking time from your
busy day to be here. You may proceed for 10 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAMIE RASKIN, RANKING MEMBER,
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY, U.S. HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES \4\
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\4\ Prepared statement of Hon. Raskin appears in the appendix on
page 55.
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Representative Raskin. And thank you, Chairman Whitehouse,
and thank you Senator Grassley, for your remarks and
distinguished members of the Committee.
In 2019, we called a hearing in House Oversight on what the
oil and gas companies knew about climate change and when they
knew it. Industry scientists and experts testified that the
companies knew the burning of fossil fuels caused climate
change as early as 1959, the year the first Barbie doll
appeared in the United States, the year that Alaska and Hawaii
were admitted to the Union. By the 1960s, before Neil Armstrong
even walked on the moon, the science of global warming was well
understood by Big Oil.
Instead of telling the world about the perils of global
warming, in changing their business model, the companies
deliberately suppressed relevant scientific findings for
decades and then challenged and dismissed urgent calls by
scientists to take climate change seriously. Instead of acting
like Paul Revere in sounding the alarm about climate change,
the acted like Maleficent, the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty,
and cursed everyone to try to go to sleep for a hundred years.
As the experts told us, Big Oil's pattern of lying and
coverup set the country back decades in our ability to
seriously address the problem. For three years, the House
Oversight Committee has investigated Big Oil's six decades of
climate deception. On September 16, 2021, we sent investigative
letters to Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron, the American Petroleum
Institute (API), and the Chamber of Commerce.
Just yesterday, with your committee, we released our final
report. Our investigation uncovered compelling evidence of
aggressive industry deceit which continued long after Big Oil
gave up on its outright climate denialism. The joint report and
documents we discovered show how time and again the biggest oil
and gas companies have talked a good game for purposes of
public consumption, but have acted in a completely reckless way
to protect their long-term profits in the carbon industry.
Company officials admit the terrifying reality of their
business model behind closed doors, but always manage to say
something deceptive, false, and soothing to the public about
climate change.
Our investigation reveals Big Oil's denial, disinformation,
and doublespeak, all to lull the public into complacency about
the enormous climate emergency we are in and the role that Big
Oil has played in bringing it about. We learned the fossil fuel
companies made public pledges to support the Paris Agreement
and achieve net zero emissions while internally recognizing
that their actual practices would never allow them to achieve
these goals.
We found the companies' PR tactics mutated from simply
denying climate science to spreading disinformation about the
safety of natural gas and engaging in propaganda about their
commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We learned
they publicly broadcast and advertised their interest in low
carbon technologies like carbon capture and algae-based
biofuels while internally acknowledging that these pie-in-the-
sky technologies are expensive, difficult to scale, and simply
not ready for commercial development.
We consistently found that the oil and gas companies relied
on trade associations like the American Petroleum Institute and
the Chamber of Commerce to spread misleading narratives to the
public and to lobby politically against effective climate
solutions that they pretended to favor. We found they pumped
$700 million into universities and academic research programs
to influence pro-natural gas studies and findings over
renewable energy solutions.
The companies paid lip service to global environmental
goals, but dismissed them as basically meaningless behind the
scenes. BP's website states that it supports the goals of the
2015 Paris Accord, but our investigation uncovered an email
revealing that BP trivialized the Paris Agreement, stating that
``No one is committed to anything other than to stay in the
game.''
So, instead of BP choosing to take the actual steps needed
to reduce its vast contribution to carbon pollution, BP is
instead, ``staying in the game of fossil fuels and carbon
pollution.'' Spinning a fairytale about their commitment to
renewable energy, fossil fuel companies have often advertised
their commitment to low carbon technologies like Exxon's
vaunted algae biofuels program. From 2009 to 2023, Exxon spent
nearly half as much on advertising algae as a climate solution
as it spent on actually researching and developing it.
Our investigation revealed that Exxon's own employees
raised concerns that the company's beautiful ads might
mistakenly imply that ``the technology is live today,'' but it
was never live. And indeed, Exxon ended up pulling up stakes on
the whole project before it ever produced any energy. When you
compare the actual investments in low carbon technologies to
the company's overall expenditures, you see exactly what kind
of priority this really is.
Shell, for example, spent just 11 percent of its total
capital expenditures on lower carbon technologies and Exxon and
Chevron spent even less at 6 and 4 percent, respectively.
We learned all of these damning facts, despite the
companies setting up huge roadblocks to our investigation. In
response to the Committee's initial letters in 2021, the
companies only provided trivial and publicly available
documents, so we sent them subpoenas. And even after being
subpoenaed, the companies continued to block our investigation.
They heavily redacted or withheld entire documents based on
erroneous privilege claims. More than 4,000 documents came back
to us substantially redacted.
They also used a paper blizzard tactic by producing
hundreds of thousands of generic and nonresponsive documents.
Of the more than 280,000 produced, more than 125,000, nearly
half, were mass emails, newsletters, and other fluff documents.
If the companies had actually complied in good faith, who knows
what else we might have discovered.
During our probe, I've been struck by the parallels between
Big Oil's aggressive denialism about climate change and the
tobacco industry's suppression of the truth about tobacco
addiction and the carcinogenic effects of smoking. More than 20
years ago, the Department of Justice (DOJ) brought a precedent
shattering case against the cigarette companies. We learned
about the massive decades-long disinformation campaign waged by
Big Tobacco. And the companies were ordered to cease and desist
their propaganda and to start telling the truth.
Governments and people around the world mobilized the facts
found to battle the tobacco industry effectively for
restitution and for investment in public health. As a result of
holding the tobacco industry accountable to the truth, rates of
cigarette smoking in our country have plummeted, particularly
among young people, and rates of cancer, emphysema, and other
lung diseases have fallen. Since the Tobacco Master Settlement
in 1998, cigarette smoking among high schoolers has fallen from
35 percent to less than 4 percent in 2021. Just insisting upon
the truth has saved millions of lives.
We're beginning to see comparable efforts to hold Big Oil
accountable for its own industrial sabotage of the truth and
accountability. State Attorney Generals (AGs) across America,
along with dozens of municipalities and Tribal Governments,
have brought lawsuits against the companies and their trade
associations to recover huge public damages allegedly caused by
injuries made possible their alleged deceptive trade practices,
fraud, public nuisance, and civil conspiracy to name just a few
causes of action we've identified.
Every citizen in America, everyone on Earth has a vested
interest in addressing the climate emergency. Scientific
research shows that the result of 1.5 Celsius degree of warming
will be more extreme heatwaves, more massive flooding, record
drought, recurring food scarcity, and dramatic sea level rise.
My watery home state of Maryland, with more than 7,000 miles of
ocean and bay coastline, is striking vulnerable to the effects
of climate change in the rising sea. Anne Arundel County, where
our state capital is, faces potential damage of more than $4
billion to its public infrastructure if sea level rises by just
5 feet.
If we were to rebuild the sea wall, which has been
recommended to protect us from an anticipated 5-foot rise in
ocean levels, it would cost our state $27 billion. How can we
do that? In his acclaimed book Collapse, Jared Diamond studied
the collapse of human societies in history. He identified five
factors that precipitate collapse, three of which relate to the
environment: climate change, environmental degradation, and the
third, the political inability to respond effectively to
environmental threats.
Diamond says that a leading cause of a society's inability
to respond to environmental emergency is the capture of
political and social power by a narrow subset of society which
is committed to its own power and profit rather than the common
good of the whole society and therefore refuses to take the
steps necessary for survival.
Fossil fuel companies publicly claim to be partners, if not
leaders in fashioning climate solutions, but our investigation
exposed that as a fraud. Big Oil is not addressing the climate
crisis, but profiting from it and using a lot of its mammoth
resources on continuing campaigns to insulate its carbon-based
business model.
For more than half a century, they've suppressed the truth
about how carbon emissions destabilize the climate and what we
need to do to protect ourselves from calamity. The era of
denial and deceit must come to an end. Thank you for your
attention, Mr. Chairman, Committee members. I yield back.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Representative
Raskin. I appreciate very much you being here. I'd like to
start looking again at the armada of front groups that the
fossil fuel industry has set up to try to disguise its hand in
all of this. Obviously, when you work through front groups,
you're not accountable for what you say, and you can
communicate different messages to shareholders and to the
public than what you're telling regulators and officials
through these enormous arrays of front groups numbering
actually in the hundreds. And I thank Bob Brulle for his work,
years of work identifying this front group, Armada.
Specific to that, let's talk a little bit about API and
when the Trump Administration determined to roll back methane
emissions. And the oil companies publicly took the position
that they were opposed to those methane rollbacks. That they
wanted those regulations to continue. That, am I correct, was
the public position that they took?
Representative Raskin. Yes.
Chairman Whitehouse. And at the same time, they used API,
American Petroleum Institute, an organization that they fund,
to send a counter message. Is there any indication in the
materials that we got that the oil companies actually control
what API does?
Representative Raskin. They certainly have significant
influence.
Chairman Whitehouse. And in this case, API took a position
for the rollbacks counter to the publicly stated position of
the oil companies. And what we discovered was an internal email
from BP saying that the rollback, which they publicly opposed
is actually, and I'll quote here, ``Aligned with our thinking,
even if it hasn't been said so publicly.'' Aligned with our
thinking, even if it hasn't been said so publicly. Your
reaction?
Representative Raskin. Well, this is the general pattern,
Senator Whitehouse, that we've found throughout our
investigation. That the companies wanted to maintain as rosy a
public posture as possible in terms of communicating the
message to the people of the country that the companies are on
board with effective climate change policies. But in reality,
they wanted to use their political power and influence to throw
the brakes on any efforts to actually make progress.
Chairman Whitehouse. The investigation has focused a lot on
what we found in the records of the industry and in its
communications with its front groups. And sometimes, like
Sherlock Holmes' famous dog that didn't bark, what isn't there
can be just as important as what is there. Can you comment on
what was not found in this investigation?
Representative Raskin. Well, the thing that gets me the
most, Mr. Chairman, is just thinking back to the decades in
which Big Oil and Gas understood the problem in a way that
almost no one else in the country or the world did. And I kept
looking for what their strategy was to get the message out to
the American people about the danger that we're all in from
climate change, a danger that is now perfectly manifest to
people around the country as we face hurricanes of record
velocity, record droughts, wildfires that are out of control,
environmental calamities that none of us had ever experienced
before.
These were all things that were predictable to the people
who had the science, and what I kept looking for was what was
there plan to notify everyone. That's why I'm talking about
Paul Revere. They could've been the environmental Paul Revere,
but instead, they were more like Rip Van Wrinkle, and they
wanted everybody to go to sleep with them for a century.
Now, I understand that they wanted to do it in a way to
continue to make profit for their shareholders and that's built
into our economic system and that's legit. They could've done
that at the same time that they told everyone what they
understood about the environmental catastrophe, as their own
people described it, that we were facing. And I didn't see
that, and maybe that could come out. Those might be more
damning documents that reveal discussions about what they
should do, but it almost seems as if they immediately moved
into a coverup mode and they've never gotten out of it.
Chairman Whitehouse. No sign of the alternative universe in
which they took climate change seriously, changed their
business model to move to renewables, put real and significant
investment into the transition, and spared us the long campaign
to mislead.
Representative Raskin. You know, I concede that it might've
been a difficult thing for them to contemplate doing, but what
are we talking about other than the fate of our species?
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Grassley. The order is
Grassley, Kaine, Johnson, Lujan, Kennedy, Van Hollen at this
point.
Senator Grassley. I thank you. Thank you for your
willingness to take questions and I only have one question, but
let me lead in with this short statement. We received a grand
total of two days to read thousands of pages of documents. We
weren't informed that House Democrats were working with Budget
Committee Democrats in a joint investigation until we received
your joint staff report yesterday.
Under this process, it's evident that this was a partisan
investigation while we haven't had nearly enough time to review
all the documents, we haven't learned anything really new in
the joint staff report. If there is new news, please tell us
what it is because this material has been mostly reported on
before.
The question, in the process of your investigation, did you
or your team discuss investigation with any environmental
groups, activists, or lobbyists?
Representative Raskin. Chairman Grassley, thank you very
much. Let me comment first on your statement, if I could, and
then I'll go to the question, or I can do it the other way.
I'm not certain which environmental groups came to testify,
and I could go back and check that for you and I will. We had
our first hearing, which I think was the first hearing in
Congress on the deception of the industry back in 2019, so I
will double check that for you. But the documents that we
released yesterday, and that overwhelming constitute the
investigation were directly received from the companies
themselves that we were forced to subpoena.
But as to your general point, I suppose you could say if
you assumed that Big Oil and Big Gas would do everything in
their power to deny the original science and then once the cat
was out of the bag on that to try to slow down our transition
to renewable energy, then I guess there wouldn't be much new
here. What we have is thousands of documents that justify that
basic intuition and that corroborate people's sense which I
readily concede is that, of course, they would fight it.
And so, call me a little starry eyed, but I think there was
an opportunity there for Big Oil and Big Gas to be heroes, not
just to our country but to all humanity, by blowing the whistle
and saying all of us are equally invested in this. We've all
benefited from the carbon model, but it's becoming a danger to
us as a species, and they never did that. And they continue to
try to frustrate and thwart our ability to move to the
renewable energy future that we need.
Senator Grassley. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Next up is Senator Lujan. Senator
Kaine is not here, so we'll go to Senator Lujan, followed by
Senator Johnson if he returns.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR LUJAN
Senator Lujan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you to our Ranking Member as well, and appreciate you
being here, Mr. Raskin, and your work in this space for
bringing attention to a hearing, namely, about emissions and
avoiding accountability.
One thing, Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to say off the top
here is I don't understand why this is a controversial
statement or not agreed to by all colleagues in the Senate and
in the House and around the country and the world. Climate
change is a serious threat to our wellbeing and to our economy.
The devastation that we're seeing all around us every day and
around the world I don't understand why that is something
there'd be disagreement upon, so I appreciate this hearing for
several reasons.
Now, first off, Mr. Raskin, to solve this problem, our
country made serious commitments with the Paris Agreement. And
importantly, major oil and gas companies, including Shell, BP,
ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, and Occidental are all on
the record voicing their support for this Paris Agreement and
many of them have told me personally about their commitment in
this space and also their commitment to reducing methane
emissions in New Mexico.
Now, these companies also know that our country cannot meet
our Paris commitments without addressing climate change as root
causes, including reducing methane emissions from the
production of oil and gas.
Now, Mr. Raskin, based on your findings of your
investigation in the House and Chairman Whitehouse's more
recent work in the Senate, yes or no, did some of these
companies privately say they didn't have plans to meet their
public pledges?
Representative Raskin. The way you worded it is a little
difficult to say yes or no, but I would say, yes, they
certainly indicated that they had no serious intention to meet
these goals. I don't know if they had plans not to, but they
certainly lacked any intention to get there.
Senator Lujan. I appreciate the clarity and honesty in your
response, Mr. Raskin.
Now, natural gas is delivered with harmful and wasteful
methane emissions that come from venting, flaring, faulty
valves, and outright abandonment of wells. Now, this is a
problem because methane is many times worse for the climate
than carbon dioxide and one third of the methane emissions in
our country come from oil and gas supply chain.
Now, what's concerning is that companies in this
investigation have known that their methane emissions are a
problem for a long time. My question, Mr. Raskin, yes or no,
have these companies consistently said the same thing about
methane emissions in public that they have in private?
Representative Raskin. No.
Senator Lujan. Some methane emissions come from accidental
leaks, but many come from outdated industry practices that
don't reflect how impactful methane emissions are to our
climate.
Mr. Raskin, given what you've learned, yes or no, have
these companies downplayed the serious climate harms coming
from methane emissions in their supply chains.
Representative Raskin. Yes. If I could add one note,
methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so the
idea that natural gas is the panacea for what ails us in carbon
emissions is just a pure fantasy and everybody knows it.
Senator Lujan. Now, one concern that I have that it appears
this investigation has shed light on is that it's more clear
that oil and gas companies are not acting on their own with
enough urgency. Now, in the rapidly growing Permian Basin in
southeastern New Mexico, methane emissions are an urgent
problem. As a matter of fact, if you look at satellite imagery
of the United Sates, there's a big methane plume over New
Mexico, arguably two, but they aren't anywhere else.
New Mexico is not the top producer in the country, but we
have the worst methane plumes. What's going on? So, when I sit
with these executives and ask them about their commitment to
reduce emissions in New Mexico, everyone says they'll do it,
but nothing happens. The methane plume gets worse and worse and
worse. People are getting sick. What about the health concerns
that people that live in proximity of these areas that they
can't see the gas, but they're breathing this stuff in? What
about them?
So, a recent study showed that New Mexico side of the
Permian emitted twice as much methane per unit produced as the
other basins across the country. Now, I'm very proud that in
New Mexico there's action now being taken. In 2021, there was
an effort by the State of New Mexico to lay out blueprint that
is now being looked at and used by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
Now, Mr. Raskin, I have several other questions in this
space and I'll submit them to you on the record. But again, Mr.
Chairman, I appreciate you bringing attention to this issue
because I'm speaking about it, not just from the seat as a
United States Senator looking at what's good for America, but
what's happening to the people that elected me to represent
them and the nonsense that's coming from--I need to be careful
with the words I'm using, Mr. Chairman, because there's a lot
of emotion in what I'm trying to share with you, Mr. Raskin.
But when any of us across America asks someone else a
question, especially dealing with the health impacts to our
constituents and they lie to us, what are we supposed to do?
And I'm sick and tired of not getting the truth and people
dying that are just trying to farm, trying to grow up in these
rural communities, Native American communities, and people just
are not being honest with them and it's just not right.
So, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this hearing very much and
thanks for calling this hearing.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Senator Lujan. Next is
Senator Kennedy, who will be followed by Senator Kaine.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY
Senator Kennedy. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congressman, welcome.
Representative Raskin. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Kennedy. I just want to say on a personal note I'm
so pleased that you beat your cancer diagnosis.
Representative Raskin. You're very kind.
Senator Kennedy. We all followed your unfortunate public
dealing with that.
Representative Raskin. My bandana made it public, I think.
Yes.
Senator Kennedy. But it was a nice touch. It was a nice
touch and I'm sorry about your son.
Representative Raskin. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Senator Kennedy. I gather, Congressman, that you support
trying to make the world carbon neutral by 2050.
Representative Raskin. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. And I gather from your testimony
that, in your judgment, part of achieving that goal is
eliminating the use of fossil fuel generated energy?
Representative Raskin. Not immediately, but there are
staged reductions that would be required in order for us to
meet that goal. And I don't think it requires the absolute
elimination of all carbon fuels, but I think something like a
steady 4 percent per year reduction.
Senator Kennedy. By 2050, how much do we need to eliminate?
Representative Raskin. Well, what the scientists are
telling us is that in order to avert the most extreme
calamities, we need to limit the global warming to 1.5 degrees
Celsius.
Senator Kennedy. But here's what I'm getting at. Right now,
America relies on fossil fuels for 80 percent of its energy. By
2050, what percentage do you think that should be in order for
us to become carbon neutral?
Representative Raskin. I better not opine on that because I
don't know, but I will tell you this, and I see where you're
going. This is a tremendous challenge. Maybe the greatest
challenge of our lifetimes and I----
Senator Kennedy. I understand. I'm sorry. They just give me
a little bit of time here.
Representative Raskin. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. Let me ask you this. How many people are
there in the world? What's the world's population?
Representative Raskin. What is it now, about four and a
half billion?
Senator Kennedy. It's about eight billion.
Representative Raskin. Is it eight billion?
Senator Kennedy. Yes. I'm not trying to trick you. I had to
look it up myself.
Representative Raskin. I should've updated on that.
Senator Kennedy. It's eight billion people.
Representative Raskin. It's eight billion. Okay.
Senator Kennedy. Four billion people depend on fertilizer
made by natural gas to eat for them to then have natural gas,
four billion people would starve to death. What'll we do about
that?
Representative Raskin. I mean that's precisely the
challenge that we need to be confronting and that we should've
been confronting all these decades. How do we disengage
gradually from one model of energy consumption and move into
another so that we are meeting the public health goals that are
urgent, as the distinguished Senator from New Mexico just----
Senator Kennedy. Are you familiar with what's called a
boreal forest?
Representative Raskin. Boreal? No.
Senator Kennedy. These are forests in the northern most
part of the world, just below the Artic in North America and
Eurasia. There are millions of acres burned there naturally
every year. The fires are less today than they were 150 years
ago, but obviously, forest fires produce carbon. And I was
reading a study of this weekend--I want to get my facts
straight here. They said the carbon released by these naturally
occurring forest fires in boreal forests, nobody lives there.
Let's see. Wildfires in the boreal forests in North America
and Eurasia in one year, 2021, released double the amount of
all global CO2 produced in 2001, and three times as
much as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is projected to
reduce by 2030.
My point is that the Inflation Reduction Act is going to
end up costing about $1.2 trillion. Presumably, their estimates
about how much carbon it will reduce by 2030. American people
are going to spend a lot of money, $1.2 trillion, for what? The
carbon released by naturally occurring boreal forest fires in
2001 is 3 times the amount we'll save by asking the American
people to spend $1.2 trillion of their money on the Inflation
Reduction Act.
Now, unless you're reason that your parents drink, that
doesn't make sense, does it?
Representative Raskin. So, thank you. I mean, that's a
trenchant question, Senator. I've heard these comparisons
before between natural greenhouse gas emissions, which are
obviously a product of forestry and agriculture and the
agricultural revolution and what we contribute through
industrial greenhouse gas emissions. But I think it's a bit of
a distraction from the real issue because we take for granted--
--
Senator Kennedy. But these are peer-reviewed studies,
Congressman.
Representative Raskin. I know and the peer-reviewed studies
show----
Senator Kennedy. The forest fires exist. I promise you.
Representative Raskin. Oh, no, I'm not doubting the science
for one minute. I'm saying let's take the science for granted.
Let's take nature for granted. Thank God that we have forests
and we have greenhouse gas emissions that come agriculture and
so on. All of that is something that we take for granted. Okay?
Now, we also, however, can reduce agricultural greenhouse
gas emissions through looking at industrial livestock
practices.
Senator Kennedy. But that's not my point. My point is--I'm
going way over. This is my last question.
Representative Raskin. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. We spend all this money. Okay, it's going
to cost America about $1 trillion a year to make us carbon
neutral by 2050.
Representative Raskin. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. We don't lower world temperatures a
scintilla of a degree if you look at the boreal forest fires,
so what'd we do?
Representative Raskin. Oh, I got you. But would you dispute
that it would be far worse if we do nothing? In other words, if
we stay on the path that Big Oil would have us stay on, are you
denying that we would be in a situation where the Earth's
temperature goes----
Senator Kennedy. But that's not your goal in trying to make
us carbon neutral is to be--it's a zero sum game. Your goal is
not to make it better. Your point is, as I understand it, that
the world will end if we don't achieve the carbon neutrality.
Representative Raskin. Right. We want to prevent calamity.
We want to make our one planetary habitat as livable as
possible, right?
Senator Kennedy. Do we need to spend trillions of dollars
fighting the boreal forest fires?
Representative Raskin. Well, let's go back to the Inflation
Reduction Act, which you invoked before. Most of the money
which you're describing as being spent on climate change
measures was actually tax incentives for the stimulation of
renewable energy.
Senator Kennedy. Agreed. But they're not stopping the
boreal forest fires. I mean, we spend all this money and we
reduce carbon and the boreal forest fires just spit out three
times the amount of carbons. What's the point?
Representative Raskin. I would love to read a peer-reviewed
study on that. I mean if we need a boreal forest----
Senator Kennedy. Read the Economist magazine. They talk
about it all the time.
Representative Raskin. All right. I will check that out,
but I mean is the suggestion that we need boreal forest fire
department?
Senator Kennedy. I'm asking you. I mean, what you all's
position is--I get it. Nobody's perfect. Oil and gas is bad and
they're destroying the world and let's get rid of them.
Representative Raskin. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. If we do that, that's going to cost
a lot. If we do that, is the world going to be okay? No.
Representative Raskin. I got you. I see where you're going.
But if I might, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Kennedy. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Raskin. If I could just take your beautiful
state, which is very close to my heart. I lived in New Orleans
a couple of times.
Senator Kennedy. Come back and spend money.
Representative Raskin. I definitely will. I plan to do
that. Louisiana has traditionally dealt with hurricanes, but is
now experiencing hurricanes of much greater velocity and much
greater ferocity under the climate change conditions.
Senator Kennedy. Not really.
Representative Raskin. Then, again, perhaps the science
that I've been seeing is----
Senator Kennedy. The damages are higher because Louisiana's
wealthier and there's more to destroy. But if you look at the
studies on the intensity, they're about the same.
Representative Raskin. All right.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Kennedy, Senator Kaine is
waiting to proceed, if you don't mind.
Senator Kennedy. We were just having a good talk.
Senator Kaine. I'm enjoying this actually.
I'm not complaining.
Senator Kennedy. I'm sorry. Thank you, Congressman.
Representative Raskin. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Whitehouse. Just for the record, my research while
Senator Kennedy was speaking is that the total wildfire
emissions are 1.8 billion tons of CO2 compared to 38
billion tons from fossil and industry, so we may have a dispute
over the facts here. But with that, let me turn it over to
Senator Kaine.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR KAINE
Senator Kaine. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair and to my
Committee members. I actually was really enjoying that. And
Rep. Raskin, so good to have you here before us. This hearing
reminds me of one that I had in the Foreign Relations Committee
in early 2017 where we were considering the confirmation of Rex
Tillerson, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of
ExxonMobil to be Secretary of State. And I asked him, Mr.
Chair, a set of the same questions that this hearing is digging
into, and he basically said that he couldn't answer them, even
though he was well aware of what ExxonMobil had done in this
space with respect to their obfuscation around climate science.
And at one point, I said, now are you telling me you can't
answer them, or you won't answer them. And he was very honest.
He said, yeah, I'm telling you both and really it was more that
he wouldn't answer them, and I can see why the Committee's
investigative work has laid out a pretty important record, I
think, of efforts by these companies to mislead the public.
But what I want to focus my questions on is the efforts by
the oil companies to mislead Congress or just not cooperate
with Congress. And I understand in the House investigation I'd
like you to talk about this a little bit.
Representative Raskin, that there were many, many instances
of refusal to cooperate with the investigation by ExxonMobil
and others. Could you just describe that event?
Representative Raskin. Well, when we first sent out the
requests, as I was describing before, we got a mountain of
minutia and distracting material, newsletters and press
releases and so on. We then used our subpoena power to get more
serious and we got more serious answers, but still we had
thousands of documents that were redacted in substantial and
perhaps critical ways. That would be my suspicion. And there
were entire documents that we never received at all.
And this is why I closed my remarks by invoking Jared
Diamond's book Collapse, which is all about how if you have a
small group in society that's invested in a particular model
that's dangerous to everyone and they're allowed to get away
with it that becomes a telltale sign of potential collapse of
the society. And so, when the United States Congress comes
calling, you owe it to the Congress, the representatives of the
people, to give the information.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly found--you guys know these
cases, I'm sure. McGrain v. Daugherty is one of them, but the
Supreme Court has been adamant that we have the right to get
the information that we want in order to legislate. We're the
representatives of the people.
Senator Kaine. I want to ask about one particular reason
asserted by at least one of the companies and maybe more for
not producing documents that I found kind of Alice in
Wonderland-like. We are not going to give you these documents
because sharing information would violate our First Amendment
rights.
Now, you're a constitutional law professor. And by my
recollection, the First Amendment with respect to speech says
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. It
is a right. Whether or not the First Amendment should've been
applied to corporations, we'll set that one aside. It has been
applied and so corporations have a right to speak, but the
notion that a corporation would claim their First Amendment
gives them a right not to share information, to hide
information that they're embarrassed by, even in the face of a
Congressional subpoena, strikes me as like that's the opposite
of the First Amendment.
Representative Raskin. I think you're right. I mean, giving
them their due, the Supreme Court has found in cases like West
Virginia v. Barnett that there is a right not to speak against
conscience, but the Supreme Court has always found that turning
over documents is an objective act that doesn't compel you to
do something against your own political ideas. So, that would
obviously lead to the end of our civil and criminal discovery
system if the First Amendment gave you the right not to turn
over documents.
Senator Kaine. Well, I was a trial lawyer. While I'm not
one of John Kennedy's acumen or flamboyance, but I was a pretty
good one.
Senator Kennedy. I deny everything.
Senator Kaine. But I will say you can always tell an
objection is made if it is an extremely unpersuasive, novel,
imaginative, unsupported objection, you can always tell there's
something they really don't want you to see. And I think that
the investigation contains an awful lot of material that the
public needs to see, but I can only imagine the extent of the
iceberg under the water that you are not allowed to see. And
with that, I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Senator Kaine.
Next is Senator Johnson, who'll be followed by Senator Van
Hollen.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congressman, welcome.
Representative Raskin. Senator.
Senator Johnson. Are you aware of the World Climate
Declaration--There is no Climate Emergency? It's signed by now
over 1,800 global scientists, professionals?
Representative Raskin. There is no Climate Emergency?
Senator Johnson. Are you aware of that declaration?
Representative Raskin. I'm not aware of that one. I assume
I'm aware of similar.
Senator Johnson. I entered it into the record. I'd
recommend you read it.
Chairman Whitehouse. Without objection, it will be entered
into the record.
Senator Johnson. I already did it, but we'll enter it into
this one too. I thought one of the interesting statements is
there is the obvious that CO2 is plant food. If you
want a green planet, you need some CO2. But anyway,
you ought to take a look at that. By the way, I'm not a climate
change denier. I'm just not a climate change alarmist like you
and the Chairman.
I would call myself a climate change realist. In your
testimony, you say my watery home state of Maryland with more
than 7,100 miles of coastline is strikingly vulnerable to the
effects of climate change and the rising seas levels. So,
that's one of the biggest alarms of the climate change folks is
that the sea level rise would just wipe out coastlines.
Correct?
Representative Raskin. Yes.
Senator Johnson. Okay. So, are you aware of how much the
sea level has risen in the Bay of San Francisco since the last
glaciation period of some 12 to 20,000 years ago, which is just
a blink of the eye in geological time. Do you know how much the
sea level's risen in the Bay of San Francisco in that time?
Representative Raskin. I do not know that one.
Senator Johnson. Do you want to just take a guess?
Representative Raskin. No, because I'm not guessing very
well today, so no.
Senator Johnson. It's 390 feet. Do you think there's
anything mankind could've done to prevent that level of sea
level rise of 390 feet, and just again, 20,000 years?
Representative Raskin. Well----
Senator Johnson. I mean, do you think there's something we
could do about that?
Representative Raskin. No.
Senator Johnson. Okay. Good. That's the answer. No, there's
nothing we could do about that. And by the way, the Chairman
mentioned witnesses brought before this Committee have--let me
tell you what some of them have said, Majority witnesses.
When I asked a Majority witness about 80 percent of world
power--you know, in the U.S., globally is created by fossil
fuel. I asked to you believe that either India or China are
going to give up their coal-burning plants. And the Democrat--
the Majority witness said, no, and neither are we because we
simply can't. So, I'm kind of getting back to Senator Kennedy's
point is literally there's nothing we can do about this, other
than adapt.
Another witness claimed that we've spent about $5
trillion--and this is before the Inflation Reduction Act, which
by the way is $400 billion of the tax credit. Goldman Sachs was
about $1.2 trillion, so that's about $6 trillion we've already
spent combatting climate change. The question I have for you is
has all that spending done anything to impact climate change,
$5 to $6 trillion already spent?
Representative Raskin. Undoubtedly, it has.
Senator Johnson. Where's the proof?
Representative Raskin. Well----
Senator Johnson. I mean, you're here before the Committee--
you know, we've had 16, 17 hearings now. Again, climate change
alarmism.
Representative Raskin. Yes.
Senator Johnson. You know, we're going to destroy our
planet. It's not going to keep lasting. We've got to do
something now. We've been doing $6 trillion worth. I haven't
heard any reduction in the alarmism here whatsoever.
Representative Raskin. Well, I mean you describe yourself,
I think, as a climate realist.
Senator Johnson. Realist.
Representative Raskin. But it sounds to me more like you're
a climate fatalist. That there's really nothing that can be
done. The focus of the hearing today, of course, is on the Big
Oil industries attempts to obscure the problem for many decades
and then to undermine any potential solutions. But if you start
with the----
Senator Johnson. Are you aware of the Vostok ice core
samples?
Representative Raskin. I'm sorry?
Senator Johnson. The Vostok ice core samples. Okay, this
was the most famous analysis over 440,000 years. Shows five
very distinct cycles. Do you know what the temperature
variations of those cycles was?
Representative Raskin. Seasonally, you mean, or do you mean
over time?
Senator Johnson. No, over geologic time, 440,000 years.
Representative Raskin. Well, there've been Ice Ages and I'm
sure it's dramatic.
Senator Johnson. And do you know what the temperature
variations revealed on those things is?
Representative Raskin. Please share.
Senator Johnson. 22.7 degrees Fahrenheit. And oh, by the
way, they didn't really talk about this, but CO2
ended up being a lagging indicator to temperature, which would
imply that as the globe warms all the CO2, most of
it that's locked up in the ocean gets unlocked and so it's
temperature that causes CO2 to rise as opposed to
the exact opposite.
Again, orbital forcing, there's all kinds of other theories
about this. What I'm saying is it's not settled science. So,
why are we projecting spending trillions of dollars to impact
something that we really in the end can't change? That's my
point.
Representative Raskin. I mean, I think the claim that the
science is uncertain is itself a lagging indicator. I mean we
heard that for decades from Big Oil that we just couldn't know.
That there's a study on this side. There's a study on that
side. I think the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence--
--
Senator Johnson. Alarmist. Yes, I realize that.
Representative Raskin. The overwhelming weight of
scientific evidence is on the conclusion that man-made causes
are behind climate change.
Senator Johnson. Check out these 800 scientists lead by two
Nobel prize winners in Physics, check out their World Climate
Declaration. There's no Climate Emergency.
Representative Raskin. I will definitely check that out and
I'll get back to you on it. I mean, again--and this is
difficult for those of us who are not scientists because all
that we can do, or at least all that we can reasonably do is
depend on the scientific authorities that are part of our
government and they're a part of the United Nations and that
are rendering the conclusions that we can count on. But I'm
very happy to read any kind of dissenting views. I really am.
Chairman Whitehouse. Next is Senator Van Hollen.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR VAN HOLLEN
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congressman Raskin, great to see you and thanks for all
your work in the area that's the subject of the hearing today
and for all you do for the great state of Maryland.
Just a follow up on that question, isn't it the case that
your investigation revealed that the Big Oil companies
themselves knew that producing the massive amount of greenhouse
gas emissions that they did would contribute to global climate
change?
Representative Raskin. Yes. They engaged in the science
themselves. They were in the very first wave of scientists who
were looking at it. They used objective scientific measures and
analysis and they came to the conclusion that their combustion
of fossil fuels leads to climate destabilization and global
warming. And only later did they come to the kind of rhetoric
suggesting that all science is equal and we can throw a dart on
the wall and figure out just as well what's happening. That was
not their initial take on this problem.
Senator Van Hollen. Right. I mean, I think the point is
that we continue to hear voices who deny the science that the
oil companies themselves looked at back in the day before they
turned to a deliberate strategy of denial, right?
Representative Raskin. And they continue to use it for
their own internal business planning purposes. I mean, you can
be certain that they're not fooling around with fake science
when it comes to their own business projections and their own
plans for the future.
Senator Van Hollen. Right. So, look, there are some who
argue that the house is on fire, but we shouldn't do anything
about it because it's going to keep burning and just eventually
burn to the ground. I think most of us recognize that what
makes sense for all of us and for humanity is to try to put out
the fire before it consumes the entire planet, destroys our
economies, and does other damage. So, I wanted to ask you about
the whole notion of what economists call externalities because
I put forward a proposal it's right now a white paper called
the Polluters Pay Climate Fund legislation. I'm pleased that
both the Sheldon Whitehouse, the Senator Whitehouse, Senator
Merkley and others are part of this effort, which we will
eventually convert to legislation. And Mr. Chairman, I would
like to put the white paper on the Polluters Pay Climate Fund
Act into the record.\5\
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\5\ Statement submitted by Senator Van Hollen appears in the
appendix on page 453.
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Chairman Whitehouse. Without objection.
Senator Van Hollen. So, there's going to be a lot of
litigation. There already is, both in local jurisdictions,
Baltimore City, State of Maryland, using the model of tobacco
companies and I think that those cases should be pursued. But
there's also another approach here that's not to the exclusion
of those efforts, which is to apply the Superfund model.
And essentially, the Superfund model was if you broke it,
you pay for it, right? Why should the public be having to pay
all the costs of harm that is due to the actions of Big Oil
companies and other major emitters? And the idea behind the
Superfund is pretty much the science is clear. In this case,
the damage done by greenhouse gas emissions is clear, so there
should be a strict liability standard, effectively. A polluter
pays standard.
You mentioned, for example, the cost just in the City of
Annapolis, $4 billion to help raise the dock, $27 billion over
time. That's just one small example. So, this proposal would
look at the very largest emitters, so we're talking about 25 to
30 of the emitters here in the United States or anybody who's
doing business here in the United States. Could you talk to the
importance of pursuing a polluter pays approach.
Representative Raskin. Well, thank you, Senator Van Hollen.
I have not familiarized myself with the details of your
proposal and I would love to check it out, but it certainly
sounds like it addresses the major problem, which is what the
economists called the tragedy of the commons. I mean who owns
the sky? Who owns the climate? Nobody does. But who uses the
climate, who uses the sky as part of their business model? Big
carbon does. And of course, all of us are implicated in it to
the extent that we drive cars and use fossil fuels, which we
do, but they're the ones who have profited from it and been
deeply invested on a long-term basis in it. And yet, they're
not asked to pay for either the short-term, the medium-term, or
the long-term effects of climate destabilization.
So, when you say polluter pays, I take it what you're
getting at is that the companies that are profiting handsomely
from this business model have to pay for the costs associated
with it, which is just a basic principle of good public policy.
You want the industries that are causing particular social
problems to be forced to be held financially accountable for
them.
Senator Van Hollen. Well, that's exactly right. And as you
know, these companies, the biggest companies, have profited
greatly off of this. And the concept behind here actually is
those who polluted the most should pay the most for cleaning up
the damage and harm they've done, and I'm pleased to have
worked with an organization I know you're familiar with, the
Chesapeake Climate Action Network in developing this proposal.
Look forward to working with you and we've got some other House
members engaged as well. So, thank you for all the work that
you've done to bring us to this point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much. Senator Merkley.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And
first, I'll speak to the issue of forest fires because we
really have seen that the longer, drier, hotter summers that
occur in my home state of Oregon are producing a lot more
fires, a lot more destructive fires. We've seen that happen in
Canada. We've seen it happen in Alaska. We've seen it happen in
Australia. So, we really have a feedback loop there that I want
to draw attention to where climate change is driving more fires
and fires are producing more carbon.
It's not a helpful feedback loop, but it's also that the
current fires are not the same as the natural fires before we
put so much carbon in the air to change the climate to produce
these long, hot summers either. They also produce more lighting
strikes, which means more fires are lit in that fashion. So, if
we want less forest fires, we better curb the carbon
contribution.
I wanted to turn to any information you'd like to share
about the feedback loop--a different feedback loop--in which
the profits from the fossil industry are pumped back into
political campaigns, not just publicity and misinformation
campaigns, but actually into political campaigns to essentially
use democracy to elect champions for the fossil industry to
help continue to manifest the misinformation, disinformation,
and opposition to taking on this very serious challenge.
Representative Raskin. Well, thank you, Senator Merkley.
Just on the negative feedback loop, you're absolutely right. If
you look at the last 10 years of temperature, I believe that 9
of the 10 are the hottest recorded years in human history with
each one basically being hotter than the last one. So, it's
very clear that as the Earth gets warmer, for example, with
respect to forest fires, we get more forest fires, production
of more greenhouse gas emissions, and then greater climate
change and so we are in a negative feedback loop there very
much.
But it also does apply in the political sphere, as you're
suggesting, the tremendous profits that are made by Big Oil and
Big Gas have been rechanneled into the political system and
some of it is through academic studies as we discussed,
hundreds of millions of dollars went in that direction, some of
it goes through just general public relations and propaganda
efforts and some of it goes directly into the political system
through campaign contributions and campaign expenditures and I
think your chairman has been very focused on the role that
Citizens United has played in this process by essentially
transforming every corporate treasury in the country into a
potential political slush fund for the CEOs to spend as they
will.
Senator Merkley. Well, it's a big challenge and the fossil
fuel industry had about $300 billion of net profit last year.
Even 1 percent of that reinvested in the political campaigns
result in a significant corrupting factor in terms of the
vision of government by and for the people versus by and for
the powerful.
I want to turn to plastics. Plastics are largely made from
fossil gas, which is a more accurate way to describe their
methane gas and to use the industries preferred term of natural
gas. And one of the big goals of the industry is as they see
people using less gas for home heating, less fossil gas for
home heating is, well, where can we expand. So, there's a
vision of tripling plastics production over the next couple
decades, thus, tripling the use of fossil gas for that purpose.
We see in this area misinformation and disinformation as well.
And did your investigation touch any on the misinformation and
disinformation regarding plastics?
Representative Raskin. I don't want to say that it did not,
Senator, and there was and is so much to absorb that I can't
remember, but I'm definitely happy to get back to you on that.
I mean, there's certainly a lot of mention of plastics, which
are an essential part of the problem, obviously, but I don't
remember about specific efforts to mislead and deceive related
to plastic.
Senator Merkley. Great. I will appreciate any additional
work you may do in the future to help touch into that plastics
space as well because very closely related to the broader
misinformation/disinformation campaign. And the more we know
about the impact of plastics on ecosystem health and on, of
course, trash, but now micro and nano plastics affecting our
human bodies and plastics are an endocrine disruptor, so it's a
big deal and there's a lot of misinformation going there in an
effort to promote a future of a lot more plastics damaging our
ecosystems.
Representative Raskin. And they're huge. I know plastic
dumps that have essentially formed in different oceans, the
conglomerations of plastics.
Senator Merkley. Absolutely true. And it's almost
impossible to get it out. If you think of floating bottles,
people think we can get that out, but getting micro and the
nano plastics out of the ocean, not doable.
I want to turn to carbon capture and sequestration (CCS),
and CCS is often promoted as well, we can burn fossils and then
we can capture the carbon out of the smokestack, if you will,
and we can store it in the ground, so stop worrying. Is CCS a
magical cure to the challenge of carbon combustion, fossil fuel
combustion or is it basically part of a misleading strategy,
kind of like the algae strategy referred to that is intended to
make people say don't worry; be happy?
Representative Raskin. Well, I don't want to write it off
completely, but certainly we found that the way it was treated
by the oil and gas companies was as a shiny, flashy object that
would capture public attention, but did not actually command a
serious investment of the resources in capital expenditures of
the oil and gas companies. So, they certainly are not treating
it as any kind of panacea and it does seem to be part of a
pattern where the big oil companies, rather than focusing on
the things we know we can actually do and get one, focus on
things that can't be done.
So, we know that wind and solar and other renewable energy
sources are right now the best pathway out of this, but we saw
the focus on algae, for example, instead which looked to me
very much like a marketing effort.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Senator Merkley,
and thank you for your very impressive work on the plastics
issue.
Congressman Raskin, thank you very much for being here. In
a moment, we will release you, gratefully, for your time, and
take a short recess while the signs are changed and the chairs
are changed and the room is set up for the second panel.
As I understand it, if Senator Johnson sends you the
document that he suggested he would, you will be kind enough to
favor him with a reply?
Representative Raskin. And I will share that with the
entire Committee and would love to talk to my friend, Senator
Kennedy, more about what's going on in the Bayou and on the
Louisiana Coast and what can be done about it.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you. And I look forward to
working with you in the months and years ahead to plow through
these redactions and multiple incidences of noncompliance so
that Congress can actually get to the bottom of this and press
through what I believe are ill advised and perhaps even ill-
intentioned assertions of privilege. Unfortunately, the
companies have the advantage because they have the documents,
they assert the privilege, they don't provide them, and we have
to fight our way through legal argument about all of that, but
I think we need to, and I look forward to working with you to
get that done in the years ahead.
Thank you very much for being here. We'll stand in recess
while the staff set up the room and then I'll gavel everyone
back into order in a few minutes.
Representative Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Whereupon, at 10:38 a.m., Wednesday, May 1, 2024, the
hearing was in recess.]
Chairman Whitehouse. Let me call the hearing back to order
and ask the various witnesses to take their seats at the
witness table. I will go ahead and introduce our next panel of
witnesses. We have four witnesses on this panel. One is nearby,
so she'll be here in time for the questions and for her
testimony.
Our first witness will be Dr. Geoffrey Supran, who serves
as Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy and
as Director of the Climate Accountability Lab at the University
of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth
Science. Dr. Supran's research focuses on the history of
climate disinformation, including fossil fuel interests early
understanding of the scientific evidence of climate change.
Prior to joining the University of Miami, Dr. Supran was a
research associate in the Department of the History of Science
at Harvard University from 2019 to 2022. He previously served
as the Director of Climate Accountability Communication for the
Climate Social Science Network, an international community of
more than 300 scholars in 25 countries that is headquartered at
the Institute for Environment and Society at Rhode Island's own
Brown University.
Our second witness is Sharon Eubanks. Ms. Eubanks is an
accomplished attorney, who served as lead counsel on behalf of
the United States Government in the largest civil Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) enforcement
action ever filed, United States v. Phillip Morris USA, et al.
In that landmark case, the U.S. District Court for the District
of Columbia found that the tobacco industry had ``engaged in
and executed and continues to engage in and execute a massive
50-year scheme to defraud the public.''
That litigation held tobacco companies accountable. They
were ordered to make corrective statements on five topics about
which they had historically deceived and misled the public.
While at the Department of Justice, Ms. Eubanks earned the
U.S. Attorney General's John Marshall Award for outstanding
legal achievement and the Stanley D. Rhodes Memorial Award.
Our third witness is Dr. Ariel Cohen. He is the Managing
Director of the Energy, Growth, and Security Program at the
International Tax and Investment Center and a nonresident
senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. His scholarship focuses
on emerging markets and natural resources, energy policy, and
gross output (GO) economics.
For more than 20 years, Dr. Cohen was a senior research
fellow in international energy policy at the Heritage
Foundation.
Finally, we're joined by Michael Ratner, a specialist in
energy policy for our Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Prior to joining CRS, he was a fellow at the John W. Kluge
Center at the Library of Congress and previously served as an
analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He also had
advised Coastal Power Company and Power Finance Corp. (PFC)
Energy and he worked for energy giant Enron between 1999 and
2003.
Thank you all for being here today. As a reminder, each
witness has up to 10 minutes for your opening statements. Your
entire written testimony will be made a matter of Committee
record. Dr. Supran, to you for your remarks.
STATEMENT OF GEOFFREY SUPRAN, Ph.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR,
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLICY, AND DIRECTOR, CLIMATE
ACCOUNTABILITY LAB, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI'S ROSENSTIEL SCHOOL OF
MARINE, ATMOSPHERIC, AND EARTH SCIENCE \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Prepared statement of Dr. Supran appears in the appendix on
page 84.
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Dr. Supran. Thank you for having me here today. Research by
scholars, journalists, and non-government organizations (NGOs)
has shown time and again that Big Oil is the new Big Tobacco.
They always follow the same four-step playbook. First, they
learn about the dangers of their products, then they scheme,
then they deny the science and scaremonger about the economy,
and then they delay action with propaganda.
My testimony will summarize these four steps, along with
examples from the documents uncovered by the House and Senate
Committees.
So, let's start with Step 1, Oil companies learn about the
dangers of their products. By 1959, 65 years ago, the American
Petroleum Institute knew that burning fossil fuels could lead
to global warming ``sufficient to melt the ice cap and submerge
New York.''
During the 1970s and '80s, Exxon scientists did cutting-
edge climate research, warning their executives in 1982 of
``potentially catastrophic climate impacts.'' My own research
has statistically shown that between 1977 and 2003, Exxon
scientists modeled and predicted global warming with shocking
skill and accuracy. And as the new House documents show, Exxon
does not dispute these findings.
Shell has likewise known about the basics of climate
science and its implications since at least 1975. Yet, instead
of alerting the public, the fossil fuel industry stayed silent
as long as possible until what Exxon privately called a
``critical event'' in 1988 when National Aeronautics and Space
Administration's (NASA) chief climate scientist testified to
Congress that he was 99 percent certain human-caused global
warming was underway.
Step 2, oil companies scheme. In response, the fossil fuel
industry devised a public relations (PR) strategy straight out
of Big Tobacco's playbook: to weaponize science against itself.
That year, 1988, Exxon set out to ``emphasize the uncertainty
in climate science.'' Or as a leaked memo put it in 1988,
``Victory will be achieved when average citizens and the media
recognize uncertainties in climate science.'' The plan's
architects were Exxon, Chevron, API, utilities companies and
their front groups.
The joint investigation's new documents show that this sort
of public affairs approach to the climate crisis--of putting
spin before science--continues at oil companies to this day.
From the late 1990s onwards, oil companies and their trade
associations abetted by front groups as well as PR, consulting,
and law firms have waged a multi-decade, multibillion-dollar
campaign of disinformation, lobbying, propaganda, and the
colonization of academia to sabotage science, scare and confuse
the public and politicians and undermine climate and clean
energy policies.
This brings us to Step 3, oil companies deny science and
scaremonger about the economy. The fossil fuel industry has
spread this disinformation in four ways, by doing it themselves
and also by funding contrarian scientists, organizations, and
politicians to do it for them.
First, no company has itself denied climate science and
exaggerated economic concerns more than Exxon-Mobil. In the
early 2000s, for example, they ran ads disguised as editorials
with language like ``unsettled science'' and ``economy
wrecking.'' Many contradictory reports 5 years earlier by the
U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coauthored by
Exxon's own chief climate scientist, which had confirmed humans
had caused global warming.
In total, our research shows that from 1996 to 2017 Mobil
and Exxon-Mobil publicly contradicted mainstream science at
least 45 times. And yet, in his 2021 testimony to the House
Oversight Committee, Exxon CEO, Darren Woods, repeatedly
affirmed that the company's public statements about climate
change has always ``been consistent with the general consensus
in the scientific community.''
As a scholar of disinformation, I do not use the word
``lie'' lightly, but no other word adequately describes the oil
industry's brazen efforts to mislead the public about its
history of misleading the public. This deceit is consistent
with the oil industry's obstruction of the Committee's
investigation as documented in today's report.
Second, the fossil fuel industry has funded contrarian
scientists and economists. For example, astrophysicist Willie
Soon published academic articles in exchange for $1.25 million
from Exxon, API, the Koch Foundation, Southern Company, and
Chevron's Texaco. His articles wrongly blamed sunspots for
warming and claimed, ``too much ice is really bad for polar
bears.'' He became a champion of climate deniers in Congress
and the media.
API, likewise, hired economic consultants to publish
reports exaggerating the costs and ignoring the benefits of
climate action. The oil industry used these reports to oppose
climate policies throughout the 1990s. Two decades later,
President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement,
citing the same flawed economic arguments by the same oil
industry-funded consultants.
Third, Big Oil has used third-party allies to do its dirty
work, leveraging a global network of over 160 organizations and
5,000 individuals. Exxon alone gave $39 million to 73 climate
denying politicians between 1992 and 2017. For example, Exxon
together with BP, Chevron, Shell, and API were all members of
the Global Climate Coalition which spent $13 million
campaigning against the 1997 United Nations (UN) Kyoto protocol
and were so successful that President Bush ``rejected Kyoto in
part based on input from you.''
As part of its campaign, the Coalition accused individual
climate scientists of corruption and malpractice. This hostile
approach to critics is echoed by my own experiences as well as
by the new House documents, which revealed Shell, Exxon, BP,
and API all tracking activists' activities and an Exxon manager
demanding that a Reuters reporter ``kill the story.''
Finally, the fossil fuel industry has funded climate
denying politicians. For instance, former Senator Jim Inhofe
described global warming as the greatest hoax ever perpetrated
on the American people. Inhofe took almost $2 million in
campaign contributions from oil and gas companies, including in
2015 when he tried to refute record temperatures by producing a
snowball on the Senate floor.
This is not a coincidence. It has been statistically proven
that the more Congresspeople vote against the environment the
more money they get from oil companies. On top of campaign
donations, between 2000 and 2016, fossil fuel interests also
spent $2 billion lobbying Congress, including against climate
legislation. They've outspent environmental groups by 10 to 1.
This brings us to Step 4. Oil companies delay climate
action with propaganda. In the mid-2000s, the fossil fuel
industry began to shift its strategy from outright denial of
science to more subtle and insidious forms of propaganda. They
went from denial to delay and yet their end goal remains the
same--and that's to stop action on climate change.
As an Exxon manager explained, there was ``an effort to
carefully reset the corporation's profile on climate positions
so it would be more sustainable and less exposed.'' From 1986
to 2015, BP, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, and Conoco-Phillips
together spent $3.6 billion on advertising. Today the oil
industry's climate messaging is dominated by what we call
discourses of delay, two of which I'll discuss now.
The first is greenwashing. Just as the fossil fuel industry
misled the public about climate science, it is now misleading
us about its commitment to be part of the solution. The new
documents are full of cases of oil companies strategizing how
to publicly present themselves as ``greening,'' even though the
oil and gas industry spent just 2.5 percent of its budget on
clean energy in 2022.
Take BP, which in the mid-2000s spent $100 million per year
rebranding itself as ``Beyond Petroleum'' only to U-turn on
that commitment. We now see that in 2021, even BP's own PR
consultants were warning that this rhetoric is greener than its
actions. This is greenwashing 101, talk green, act dirty.
The new documents, likewise, show an Exxon vice president
privately acknowledging that they were ``getting too far out
there on their original algae ads,'' spending a full quarter of
their algae biofuel budget on ads trumpeting a technology that
by their own internal admission is ``still decades away from
the scale we need.''
The other discourse of delay I want to highlight is fossil
fuel solutionism, whereby the oil industry relies on unproven
or uneconomical technologies like CCS and offset schemes to
argue fossil fuels are essential to addressing climate change,
despite no company having a business plan consistent with the
Paris Agreement.
A clear example from the joint investigation is a 2017 BP
email that prioritizes ``promoting and protecting the role of
gas,'' even though in another BP document the company admits
that ``gas doesn't support climate goals when you take methane
emissions into account.'' BP's solution, a $1.1 million PR
campaign that included funding white papers from Princeton and
Imperial College ``highlighting the role of gas as a friend to
renewables.'' This has all the hallmarks of what we call the
fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia.
In conclusion, there is overwhelming evidence that fossil
fuel interests have deliberately used disinformation, lobbying,
propaganda, and academic influence to stop action on climate
change for decades. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) has concluded, they have been successful. The
memos uncovered by this Committee give us new evidence of this
long history, exposing even more skeletons in Big Oil's closet.
They confirm our worst fear, which is that fossil fuel
companies have failed to change their stripes since Paris and
that their efforts to delay climate action continue. Thank you
very much.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much Dr. Supran. Ms.
Eubanks.
STATEMENT OF SHARON EUBANKS, FORMER DIRECTOR, TOBACCO
LITIGATION TEAM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE \7\
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\7\ Prepared statement of Ms. Eubanks appears in the appendix on
page 60.
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Ms. Eubanks. Thank you very much for this opportunity to
speak with you about climate change liability. I'm Sharon
Eubanks and I used to be a director at the Department of
Justice Civil Division. I was in charge of the racketeering
case that the government filed there in 1999.
Following a 9 month trial in that case, U.S. District Judge
Gladys Kessler ruled in favor of the Justice Department,
finding that the tobacco industry defendants were liable for
racketeering violations spanning a period of 50 years. Judge
Kessler wrote detailed factual findings in the tobacco case,
and they reveal a striking similarity to the behavior of the
petroleum industry today.
For example, Judge Kessler found that the tobacco companies
engaged in a massive public relations campaign to fraudulently
deny and distort the health consequences of smoking and
secondhand smoke. Both industries funneled money into promoting
fake science. Exxon knew that the reality of climate change
back in the 1970s and before that as well. And they later
invested in telling the public that climate change was not
real.
Similarly, Judge Kessler found that the tobacco defendants
actively concealed adverse scientific findings, entered into
agreements not to conduct research and used lawyers to control
research so that if it would serve the purposes of litigation
and public relations. That was the research they wanted done.
The fossil fuel industry concealed its well-known facts
about the cause of climate change and instead deployed
significant resources in an effort to sow doubt about the
science. Both industries fought hard against regulation. The
petroleum industry is quite aware of the possibility that
regulations might move us toward low carbon transportation
directly affecting the bottom line.
Both industries lied to the public and regulators about
what they knew about the harms of their products and when they
knew it. The deceptive advertising and the PR of the fossil
fuel industry is now under intense legal scrutiny. More than
1,800 lawsuits have been filed regarding climate liability
worldwide. Many of these cases concern the misleading fake
science that the industry purposefully distributed to the
public for decades.
Denying that its product was the leading cause of global
climate change, Exxon, in fact, knew the reality of climate
change in the late 1970s and later invested substantially in
telling the public that it was not happening. That climate
change was not real. The similarities between the conduct of
the tobacco industry and the petroleum industry form a solid
and appropriate basis for investigating the petroleum industry.
Furthermore, we should not waste time in wringing our hands. We
have documents that lay out what is currently happening.
There exists solid evidentiary basis to support more
information being gathered on these companies. Just as the
Department of Justice investigated the tobacco industry and
ultimately filed a civil racketeering case, complaints against
the industry have similarities in the fraudulent acts in the
government was successful in the tobacco case. So there is
certainly an adequate legal foundation for litigation against
this industry and individuals and as groups.
Many of the cases filed against the fossil fuel industry
focus on deceptive marketing in the form of greenwashing.
You've heard others talk about greenwashing here this morning.
This is different from green marketing. That's important. With
green marketing, companies that have genuinely sustainable
products are and should remain free to market them accurately.
But the oil industry is not a sustainable business. On average,
less than 1 percent of its capital goes into low-carbon
projects. This fact notwithstanding, the oil industry continues
to misinform the public about their efforts to address the
harms of climate change.
Little has changed in recent years. The companies continue
to mislead and there's a great amount of deception the
companies continue to engage in, such as greenwashing and
doublespeak. A robust and growing body of documentary evidence
demonstrates that the major oil and gas companies, whose
products are substantially responsible for the global
greenhouse emissions and the resulting climate emergency we now
face. These same companies had early and repeated notice and a
knowledge of climate risks at the point in time that they had
plenty of time to develop ways to avoid or to reduce these
risks. Instead, they chose to mount a campaign of
disinformation and denial.
Just as it was in the case with the tobacco industry, the
petroleum companies' internal documents tell the story. In
1998, a memo entitled ``Global Climate Science Communications
Action Plan'' and nicknamed the ``Victory Memo,'' outlines a
multiyear, multimillion-dollar scheme to create uncertainty
about well-established climate science. The plan outlined in
the Victory Memo is elaborate, involving a multiyear,
multimillion-dollar scheme to create uncertainty about well-
established climate science.
The idea is to recruit and train a team of scientists to
debunk global warming on radio talk shows, press briefings,
campus workshops, and other types of public research. While the
petroleum industry, writ large, is deeply involved in the
deception, Exxon-Mobil was a leader in the field, following the
tobacco's playbook to a tee. Exxon-Mobil funded climate change
denial long after its own scientists knew and determined that
the climate change was real. Exxon-Mobil's manufacturing
campaign was not conducted alone, rather it associated with
other groups and organizations to carry out the message of
doubt. Kind of like that board with all the organizations on
it, the dark money board. That was Exxon's approach to a lot of
things to bring in other companies to work with them that way.
Exxon-Mobil misled investors and the public about the risk
of climate change all for the reaching of the bottom line,
which is it was all about money. That's not to say that others
weren't equally involved, or involved at least, but Exxon was,
let's just say, the leader of the pack. And the behavior and
goals of the tobacco industry and the petroleum industry are
quite similar and for this reason there are many similarities
in their liabilities.
Both industries lied to the public and regulators about
what they knew about the harms of their product and they lied
about when they knew it. For example, Exxon-Mobil, like the
tobacco industry, engaged in a decade's long conspiracy to
deceive the American public and funded a climate denial program
years, many years after its scientists had established that
manmade climate change was real.
At the time of tobacco, the oil companies' campaign of
misinformation was conducted by individual companies and by
trade groups, advertisers, and other proxies that spread the
message of doubt. Also, like tobacco, in-house scientists
confirmed present and future threats to the public, while the
companies and their proxies publicly disputed the distorted
scientific findings. In particular, the dangers of carbon
pollution and climate change.
The campaign of climate change denial had the intended
effect of delaying the actions that might resolve the issues,
including government regulatory actions while the public bore
the effects of the delay.
At the core of liability issues for the fossil fuel
industry is that no company has acknowledged, just as the
tobacco companies refused to acknowledge, that the product is
the problem.
Thank you very much for your time. I've received no
financial compensation or anything of any value from any person
or from any organization for my time or testimony given in
these proceedings. I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Ms. Eubanks. Next is Dr.
Cohen.
STATEMENT OF DR. ARIEL COHEN, SENIOR FELLOW, THE ATLANTIC
COUNCIL, AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, ENERGY, GROWTH, AND SECURITY
PROGRAM, INTERNATIONAL TAX INVESTMENT CENTER \8\
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\8\ Prepared statement of Dr. Cohen appears in the appendix on page
340.
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Dr. Cohen. Mr. Chairman, esteemed members of the Committee,
Senators, and staff, our nation today faces grave technological
and policy challenges when it comes to energy. The transition
to renewable energy is a multidecade, massive Industrial,
economic, and societal transformation.
I do believe it's unstoppable. The question is are we
throwing the baby with the bath water. As it was the case with
railroads, cars, telephone cables, contraceptives, and later
space travel and genetic engineering, we do not fully grasp all
the far-reaching consequences of this phenomenon, as Professor
Alexander Mirtchev of George Mason University posited in his
definitive The Prologue: The Alternative Energy Megatrend
volume. However, U.S. has come a long way from 2005 when our
energy imports peaked, we became a net energy exporter in 2019.
Our national and continental energy security has improved due
to shale oil and gas production, growing exports of liquified
natural gas, LNG, and increased electricity generation from
renewables.
When it comes to the impact of economic and technological
progress of the environment, there's no doubt that this is a
global and not national issue. Colleagues here mentioned India,
China, and other emerging markets, developing countries that
are not taking guidance from this august house from the
Congress, in general, or from the Department of Energy (DOE)
and the Environmental Protection Agency, nor are they subject
to the jurisdiction of the U.S. courts.
When it comes to renewable energy, we must find out what is
the optimal way to a zero-emission world where everybody can
progress and prosper. The prosperity of the United States and
of the West, collectively, has been built on ever cheaper and
abundant energy. The evolution was from wood to coal to oil to
gas to nuclear, now to renewable energy. But can we, for
example, impose this leapfrog to countries that 10, 30, 50, 70
percent of the population have 0 electricity. There is a huge
danger, moral hazard in trying to impose that on them.
Unfortunately, at this juncture, the energy field is rife
with politicization. There's tremendous pressure to find a
quick fix-it. There are international security dimensions and
domestic policy pressures, as I said, to find quick fixes. The
truth is the United States is locked in ferocious competition
with China over global leadership, including the world energy
future.
China is near monopolizing technology for solar panels,
mining, refining, and evermore rare earth minerals and
producing more electric cars than the United States. The
struggle between the desire to go green today and the necessity
to having heat in winter and energy to fill factories and
businesses has been played out in sharp relief in Western
Europe since the February 22 Russian reinvasion of Ukraine.
Take Germany, they spent =600 billion in what they called
an Energiewende, the rapid transition to renewables, pouring
subsidies into wind and solar and the cost may reach =1
trillion by 2030, causing high energy prices, high taxes, low
industrial competitiveness, and slow economic growth. And as
they needed to walk away from 40 plus percent of their gas
coming from Russia and other misguided policies of Chancellor
Merkel, the United States, President Biden stepped in and
promised them our supply of liquified natural gas (LNG).
Now, the Biden Administration is trying to walk it back. It
is imposing a freeze or a pause, then a freeze of LNG supply to
export LNG and we don't know what's going to happen after the
elections. Today if we miraculously moved entirely to
renewables, we would need massive amounts of energy storage. We
don't have it. The amount of energy storage today in the United
States is 43 minutes, not hours, not days, not weeks, 43
minutes as opposed to the strategic petroleum reserve that,
when full, has enough oil for 90 days.
So, we need baseload sources to meet our ever-increasing
energy demands. If, for example, we move to entirely EV,
electric vehicles, fleet by 2035, as the European Union (EU)
and California suggest, we would need to increase our energy
production by 50 percent. If this was only the renewables, what
would happen at night? What would happen when the wind is not
blowing? The price of such a storage capacity is in trillions
of dollars. It's in my testimony. I'm not going to bore you
with the numbers and the energy density of lithium battery
versus gas, but suffice it to say that the Department of
Energy, the Biden Administration, Environmental Protection
Agency all agree that in terms of storage we do not have the
economic technology to back full transition to renewables, so
what's left?
The three sources of baseload energy production: coal,
which nobody likes. It's very polluting. It's not
CO2, only CO2. It's sulfur oxides
(SOX) and nitrogen oxides (NOX). I have
asthma. I don't want electricity from coal produced anywhere
near me, but of course, China, India, and others will continue
producing it. Two is gas, natural gas, and three is nuclear.
Let's talk about nuclear. I'm told Senator Whitehouse is a
supporter of nuclear and I fully support that too. It is a
zero-emission source of energy and it's easy to channel to
baseload. However, we regulated ourselves out of nuclear energy
business since the late 1970s. So, in the future, going to the
future, if we're serious about climate change and measures to
stop it, we need to go through a nuclear renaissance. We need
to research new technologies for energy storage because we
cannot rely on solar and wind today as they are today. And most
importantly, geopolitically, as we're locked in this
competition with China, we need to provide available, ample,
and competitive LNG to our allies in Europe and in Asia.
That means that, for example, as 20 million tons, 40-
billion-cubic meters of gas are currently sold by Russia to
Europe and the EU is thinking about sanctions against Russia.
Our industry should be ready to step in and provide that LNG.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we stop providing LNG to the global
market, guess what, Russia, Qatar, Nigeria, Algeria,
Mozambique, and others, most of them far from being paragons of
democracy are going to step in. If it's not American molecules,
it's not going to be solar and wind. It's going to be Qatar and
Russia.
To conclude, facing a global systemic challenge which U.S.
will not be able to solve alone just by banning fossil fuels
production at home, we and our allies are facing just strategic
challenges in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Our economy
and military need reliable and ample supplies of energy and so
do our allies. We need to manage energy transition at gradual,
consumer-friendly, business-friendly ways. We need to expand
electricity generation to meet the growing demand from the
transportation sector and we need a nuclear renaissance,
otherwise, undermining American standing, not just an arsenal
of democracy, but as a strategic energy reserve of democracy
would undermine U.S. centric international system with gravest
of consequences. Thank you very much.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you. And finally, Mr. Ratner.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL RATNER, SPECIALIST IN ENERGY POLICY,
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE \9\
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\9\ Prepared statement of Mr. Ratner appears in the appendix on
page 347.
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Mr. Ratner. Thank you. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member
Grassley, members of the Committee, my name is Michael Ratner.
I am a specialist in energy policy focused on natural gas
issues at the Congressional Research Service. CRS appreciates
the opportunity to testify on the important issues today. I've
been asked to provide testimony related to the use of fossil
fuels from broad geopolitical and security perspectives and to
provide context on fossil fuel consumption and supply.
Additionally, I will confine my testimony in accordance
with CRS's enabling statutes and guidelines on objectivity and
nonpartisanship. CRS takes no position on any related proposed
or pending legislation or policy.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration
(EIA) data, approximately 89 percent of the world's primary
energy consumption, meaning energy used directly or to produce
other forms of energy, came from fossil fuels in 2022, being
almost evenly split among oil, coal, and natural gas. To put
this in perspective, according to the EIA data, global use of
non-fossil fuel resources, including hydropower, non-hydro
renewable energy, and nuclear energy currently represents about
one tenth of supply.
In 2022, fossil fuels comprised 84 percent of U.S. primary
energy. This difference highlights the challenges the world
faces to globally replace fossil fuels as an energy source. In
2022, 61 percent of worldwide electricity generation came from
fossil fuels led by coal. In the United States, almost the same
percent of electricity generation came from fossil fuels as
well, but with natural gas as the most common fuel.
The United States is the largest producer, consumer, and
exporter of natural gas in the world. Being self-sufficient in
natural gas, which tends to be a regional commodity from a
markets and pricing perspective has insulated the United States
from natural gas price rises experienced elsewhere. On January
26, 2024, the Biden Administration announced a temporary pause
in the approval process of natural gas export permits to
countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the
United States. This pause has the potential to affect future
liquified natural gas exports and the facilities associated
with liquifying and exporting natural gas.
The Department of Energy's non-Federal Transit
Administration (FTA) permit to export natural gas is one
component of the federal regulatory process. Two aspects of the
permit process have brought it to the forefront. The Natural
Gas Act requires DOE to make a public interest determination,
but did not define in statute what that public interest
determination entailed. And two, the only country that the
United States has a free trade agreement with and is a major
LNG importer is South Korea. Companies seek the non-FTA permit
to export to other countries.
The public interest determination underlies the
Administration's justification for temporarily pausing the
permitting process for LNG exports to non-FTA countries. The
Administration has stated that they are updating the underlying
economic and environmental analysis used in prior
authorizations. The statute does not require nor prohibit DOE
to pause the permitting process in order to reevaluate the
public interest determination.
The existing U.S. LNG export capacity is about 15-billion-
cubic feet per day, which represents about 1/6th of U.S.
consumption. Another almost 30-billion-cubic feet per day is
already fully permitted for construction and exports to FTA and
non-FTA countries. This includes approximately 17-billion-cubic
feet per day of liquefaction capacity that is under
construction and approximately another 12-billion-cubic feet
per day of liquefaction that has been approved by the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission and DOE, but has not broken
ground.
This latter category suggests that there existed before the
temporary pause some market hesitation for company executives
that could, in theory, start construction but have chosen not
to. Individual companies have their reasons for waiting, which
will vary by company, especially since the projects have
already secured a non-FTA permit from DOE. They are not
affected by the pause. The pause only affects projects that
have not yet secured a DOE permit.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, energy security
has increased in priority for many countries, particularly with
regard to natural gas supply. U.S. LNG and gas piped from
Norway are currently the largest sources of natural gas to the
European Union and other parts of Europe. Prior to Russia's
invasion, U.S. LNG accounted for 6 percent of Europe's natural
gas imports. U.S. LNG share has tripled to 18 percent in 2023.
This was the largest rise of any country's exports to Europe.
During the same time period, Russia provided almost half of
Europe's natural gas imports in 2021 and 15 percent in 2023.
Part of the decrease in Russian supplies is because Russia cut
exports to certain European countries that it deemed hostile
and not cooperating in the purchasing of gas in rubles. Russia
can and has used natural gas supply for political and economic
gains because the European market has not been able to change
its supply sources quickly.
The Biden Administration's temporary pause in LNG
permitting has arguably added some degree of uncertainty in the
market, particularly when looking at the longer term. The
United States is primarily a market driven economy and company
executives make decision to invest based, in part, on
perceptions of the market and a likelihood of a satisfactory
rate of return on their investment. Government regulations set
a structure for the LNG companies and any changes can affect
perceptions of the market positively or negatively.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks very much. I believe that
Ranking Member Grassley and I are both going to yield to other
colleagues who are pressed for time and therefore the order of
questioning will be Sanders, Kennedy, Merkley; is that correct?
That's correct. Okay, Senator Sanders.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR SANDERS
Senator Sanders. Well, Chairman Whitehouse, thanks very
much for holding this important hearing and let me thank all of
the panelists for being here.
If a large corporation knowingly, knowingly--produces a
product that gets me sick or kills me, I would assume that we
have an abundance of laws to prosecute that company and to hold
them accountable and to demand punitive damages. My dad, like
so many other people, smoked several packs of cigarettes a day.
He died I suspect largely because of that, as did millions of
other Americans who were lied to by the tobacco industry.
I remember as a kid seeing doctors in white coats on
television smoking cigarettes, telling the American people how
favorable and good these cigarettes were while they were
killing the American people. So, I'd like to ask Ms. Eubanks a
simple question. If we have an industry that knowingly, and
that's the point, knowingly understood that carbon emissions
were causing climate change, knowingly understood that climate
change will bring devastating destruction to the lives of
billions of people, what are the legal grounds that we can hold
them accountable for? Ms. Eubanks.
Ms. Eubanks. Well, a lot of it would depend on whether it
was in a state or the federal government. The federal
government RICO statute, of course, has provisions that we used
in the tobacco litigation and was a way to bring all of the
claims under the same umbrella. Conspiracy is a good claim to
look at in a lot of the statutes that are involved in consumer
protection laws.
Senator Sanders. If you were Attorney General of the United
States, would you proceed in that direction?
Ms. Eubanks. I would. Yes, no question.
Senator Sanders. Okay. Any thoughts as to why the current
Attorney General is not going forward in that direction?
Ms. Eubanks. It's probably not really appropriate for me to
comment on that since I don't know anything about what the
current Attorney General is doing, as I explained in the
papers.
Senator Sanders. I don't remember exactly what the
settlement with tobacco was. It was huge.
Ms. Eubanks. It wasn't a settlement. I won. It was a 9-
month trial, and the companies were ordered to change the way
they do business. And I think that that type of Order, not
involving money, but money's great. Don't get me wrong. That
could be another part of any end to a case where you're talking
about what the damages, or the remedies would be. But getting a
company to change the way it did business that's what we got
out of tobacco, and it took years.
Senator Sanders. We also got money. The states, I guess,
got money.
Ms. Eubanks. The states got money. Yes. Correct.
Senator Sanders. Let me ask Mr. Supran a question. What, in
your judgment, are the similarities between the actions of Big
Tobacco and what we're seeing with the fossil fuel industry
today?
Dr. Supran. Thank you, Senator. Yes, as I said during my
opening statement, Big Oil is frankly the new Big Tobacco. My
colleagues and I have published an article called ``America
Misled,'' where we lay out the evidence for these similarities.
They're multifold from the strategies to the personnel.
Senator Sanders. Have they been consistently lying?
Dr. Supran. The oil industry?
Senator Sanders. Yes.
Dr. Supran. They have been consistently misleading the
public about the realities and implications of their products.
Yes.
Senator Sanders. And if you have a huge entity in the
United States, the fossil fuel industry, the oil companies
misleading the American people, not allowing us or having the
information to take the kind of actions that we should've taken
dozens of years ago, what are the implications of that?
Dr. Supran. So, it's important to clarify that I'm not a
lawyer, but as my statement made very clear, we have the
receipts. We have overwhelming evidence that this industry has
known since twice my lifetime about the dangers of their
products, and they knowingly and deliberately created a
multidecade, multibillion-dollar campaign to confuse----
Senator Sanders. And the result of that is that countries
all over the world were very slow moving in attempting to deal
with climate change; is that correct?
Dr. Supran. Yes, that's correct. It's enshrined in the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent
assessment that this history of disinformation and lobbying has
delayed action on climate change worldwide.
Senator Sanders. Do you have any understanding of how many
hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars in damage will
take place as a result of that misleading campaign?
Dr. Supran. It's hard to ascribe specific dollar values to
specific actions because obviously we live in a complex,
multiconnected society. But at the same time--and also, Im not
an economist, but economists who have studied this estimate
that by around 2030 the consequences of global warming could
include a $240 billion COVID-like economic shock every 5 years.
Senator Sanders. Every 5 years?
Dr. Supran. Yes.
Senator Sanders. Well, in my view, it should not be state
government or the federal government having to pick up the
bill. I think it's time to ask the people who caused that
problem or lied about that situation to pick up the bill. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Senator Sanders. Senator
Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Cohen, let me
start with you. I'm going to ask a few questions. I think these
are yes or no or I don't know questions. The last few years,
unfortunately, the United States economy has experienced
substantial inflation, is that correct?
Dr. Cohen. Yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy. And that inflation is man-made, is it not?
Dr. Cohen. Any inflation is man-made, sir.
Senator Kennedy. And that man's name is Joe Biden, is it
not.
Dr. Cohen. I cannot answer that, sir.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. Since President Biden took office,
average electricity prices in the United States are up 29.4
percent, are they not?
Dr. Cohen. I'll have to check the data and get back to you
on that, sir.
Senator Kennedy. And isn't it true that electricity prices
under President Biden have increased 13 times faster than the
previous 7 years?
Dr. Cohen. I'll have to check the data, sir.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. And the National Energy Assistant
Directors Association--I don't know if you're familiar with
them. I've checked them out. They're a reputable group. They
say that the average United States electricity bill will go up
10 percent this year and 10 percent next year, is that correct?
Dr. Cohen. Again, I'm not familiar with the data, but I can
point out, sir, that in Europe----
Senator Kennedy. I'm not interested in Europe.
Dr. Cohen. In Europe, prices are 2.5 to 3 percent higher.
Senator Kennedy. I'm interested in our people right now
who----
Dr. Cohen. Our people have----
Senator Kennedy [continuing]. Having to sell blood in order
to pay their electricity bill. A substantial portion of this
inflation in electricity, up 30 percent since President Biden
took office, is directly related to his energy policies, is it
not?
Dr. Cohen. Energy prices fluctuate based on supply and
demand of all sources of energy. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. You think it has nothing--is that a yes or
a no?
Dr. Cohen. It's a very complicated economic question, sir.
Senator Kennedy. I understand. Give me an answer. Did
President Biden's policies contribute to the inflation or
didn't they?
Dr. Cohen. Both Republican and Democratic Administrations
infused the economy with trillions of dollars which contributes
to the inflation. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. I don't believe any Republicans voted for
the Inflation Reduction Act, is that correct?
Dr. Cohen. I don't know.
Senator Kennedy. Well, I do, $1.2 trillion, green new deal.
No Republicans voted for it. You want to amend your answer?
Dr. Cohen. I'll amend my answer that under President Trump
and under President Biden trillions of dollars were infused
into the economy and contributed to----
Senator Kennedy. Electricity prices went up 5 percent----
Dr. Cohen [continuing]. The inflation.
Senator Kennedy [continuing]. Over 4 years and under Biden
they went up 30 percent over three years, which is better?
Dr. Cohen. Say again under Trump please?
Senator Kennedy. Under Trump electricity prices went up 5
percent. Under Biden they went up 30 percent over three years,
which is better?
Dr. Cohen. Clearly, lower rise in electricity prices is
better, however----
Senator Kennedy. All right. Dr. Supran, let me ask you a
couple of questions.
Dr. Cohen. Okay.
Senator Kennedy. You're here at the request of my
Democratic colleagues?
Dr. Cohen. No, sir.
Senator Kennedy. No, Dr. Supran.
Dr. Supran. That's correct. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. Dr. Supran, on December 14, 2023,
you tweeted in support of Climate Defiance. That's an entity
that the Brookings Institute has called a radical climate
change group, is that correct?
Dr. Supran. I don't recall, I'm afraid.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. Would this be the same Climate
Defiance that you--I'm looking at your tweet. You tweeted in
support of them. Would this be the same Climate Defiance that
called Senator Joe Biden ``a sick fuck''?
Dr. Supran. I don't know. But as I mentioned----
Senator Kennedy. Would this be the same Climate Defiance
that called Senator Lisa Murkowski a murderer?
Dr. Supran. I do not know. As I said in my statement----
Senator Kennedy. Would this be the same Climate Defiance
who told the CEO of Exxon to ``eat shit, Darren''?
Dr. Supran. I'm not responsible for the statements of other
people.
Senator Kennedy. Nice group you're hanging out with----
Dr. Supran. And I also don't know the answer.
Senator Kennedy [continuing]. Doc. Here's what your tweet
says in support of Climate Defiance, ``We do not do online
petitions. We do not do NGO coalition letters. We do not do
fucking bus stop ads. We chase fossil fuel CEOs and the
politicians who do their bidding and we do not apologize.'' Did
I read that correctly?
Dr. Supran. That is not my tweet, sir.
Senator Kennedy. That is your tweet. I'm looking at--here's
a copy right here. It's right off your website big as Dallas.
On October 31, 2023----
Dr. Supran. I'm almost certain that is not my tweet, sir.
Senator Kennedy [continuing]. You said this on Twitter.
``Climate justice was coined by our movements to locate it
as a struggle against geocidal racial injustice, colonialism,
and Apartheid. If your climate justice doesn't stand with the
Palestinians against colonialism and Apartheid, then your
climate justice has no justice in it.'' Did you say that?
Dr. Supran. I believe not.
Senator Kennedy. Here it is bigger than Dallas.
Dr. Supran. May I please see the documents?
Senator Kennedy. Yes, sir. Hand the witness his documents
there.
Dr. Supran. May I please point out that----
Chairman Whitehouse. The Senator's time has expired and
there are other senators waiting.
Senator Kennedy. I've got a bunch more tweets. Thanks for
your objective advice, Doc.
Chairman Whitehouse. You can put them into a question for
the record and----
Senator Kennedy. Yes, I'd like to submit all of the good
Doctor's objective tweets and scientific analysis for the
record.\10\
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\10\ Statement submitted by Senator Kennedy appears in the appendix
on page 457.
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Chairman Whitehouse. That will be done without objection.
Senator Merkley.
Dr. Supran. May I clarify one final point?
Chairman Whitehouse. Proceed.
Dr. Supran. These are not my tweets. These are retweets.
Senator Kennedy. Oh, you often retweet stuff you don't
support, is that what you're telling me, Doc.
Dr. Supran. I did not say that I don't support this. I
simply did not tweet it, as you're alleging.
Senator Kennedy. But you retweeted them, didn't you?
Dr. Supran. I'd like to make it very clear that this form
of character assassination is characteristic of the propaganda
techniques of fossil fuel interests.
Senator Kennedy. You retweeted that----
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Merkley.
Senator Kennedy [continuing]. Didn't you?
Dr. Supran. Thank you.
Senator Kennedy. Are you going to call me a sick fuck?
Chairman Whitehouse. It's Senator Merkley's time.
Senator Merkley. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to note since
a few things were said about fossil gas, methane gas,
characterized and also it's liquefaction as liquified natural
gas that the science is that fossil gas is as damaging to the
climate, given its life cycle over 20 years and the methane
leakage, as is coal. So, there's been a campaign to call fossil
gas clean that isn't justified. And when you do the additional
energy to liquify it and send it overseas and put it in an
additional pipe system that also leaks methane, then it's worse
than local coal.
And the LNG pause that was referred to it's important to
remember that there are an additional 17 licensed projects on
top of the 17 that have already been built and the pause is
related to the 25th project. So, the implications of saying
somehow this is crushing the fossil gas expansion is just
absolutely wrong.
Now, I want to turn to a document that I'd submit for the
record titled ``Reputational Risks Associated with the Upcoming
BP Advocacy Campaign to Protect Cherry Point Refinery's License
to Operate.'' If I could, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Without objection.
Senator Merkley. And a second document called ``Creating a
Better Environment to Help BP Deliver Its Operational and
Strategic Priorities in Washington State.'' \11\
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\11\ Statements submitted by Senator Merkley appear in the appendix
on page 379.
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Chairman Whitehouse. Also, without objection.
Senator Merkley. What's really interesting about this 2018
document is it lays out BP's plan to defeat a local ordinance,
a county council ordinance that would've been in pursued in
November of 2018 that would've made expansion or upgrade of
Cherry Point Refinery more difficult. And it lays out a
coordinated plan to get the county commissioners to either
amend the ordinance or delay it or to give it up, the three
things that are mentioned specifically in here.
And they lay out their details. We'll focus on creating
jobs. We'll focus on that we are pursuing a low carbon agenda.
And then it proceeds to say, but we need a more comprehensive
plan for Washington State. So, that more comprehensive plan is
the second document that I just entered into the record, and I
think it's a roadmap for often how the oil industry goes about
trying to create a media campaign, many features of a media
campaign in order to change how people think about an issue.
And this proceeds to say that the challenges we face ``will
only get worse unless we change the public's perception of
us.'' And it goes on to talk about many pieces of that strategy
and those include relying on business trade organizations,
partnerships, reaching out to NGOs, to local Tribes, to
community organizations to build a coalition of supporters,
moving a key personnel from Illinois to Washington State,
participating in a Washington State petroleum association
coalition in Washington State, increasing their strength in
outside legal counsel to help fight legal battles, increasing
the political action committee (PAC) distributions in the
state, that is political contributions to politicians.
Doing a special one-time project promoting salmon, salmon
hatchery as a way of creating, hey, we're the wonderful saviors
of salmon, spending $300,000 a year on soft persuasion,
spending $2.5 million per year or as much as $4.5 million per
year on what is called hard persuasion, that includes a lot of
advertising campaigns, again, media campaigns. It includes an
employee contractor education and advocacy program. It includes
creating British Petroleum social media identities. I'm sure
exactly what all that means, but I don't know if it's people to
weigh in on social media. It talks then about additional
funding for lobbyists in Washington State and so forth.
So, I wanted to ask you, Dr. Supran, this comprehensive
document of strategy is this pretty characteristic of how the
petroleum industry, the fossil fuel industry seeks to really
change public perceptions and to influence politicians right
down to the local county level to achieve their objectives of
expanding fossil fuel refineries, expanding consumption?
Dr. Supran. Yes. And it constitutes important additional
evidence to that effect.
Senator Merkley. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Next Senator Grassley, followed by
Senator Padilla.
Senator Grassley. Mr. Ratner, I got some questions about
how unrealistic some of these goals are, not that they aren't
worthy goals, but that they're unrealistic. You're a
nonpartisan energy policy specialist who spent his entire
career as an international oil and gas expert.
Before your time in the CIA, you spent 4 years at Enron, so
you experienced first-hand the impact of corporate fraud and
corruption. Now, that you've heard claims of a concerted,
overwhelming conspiracy to defraud the public of climate change
information, have you seen any evidence to support the
Democrats' claims of fossil fuel industry deception?
Mr. Ratner. Thank you, Senator. During the course of my
career, I've never come across anything to the likes that have
been mentioned here today.
Senator Grassley. Okay. Also for you, your testimony notes
that fossil fuels comprise 84 percent of U.S. energy
consumption in 2022. What would it mean for the U.S. gasoline
and international gas prices if all new and expanded oil, gas
exploration immediately ceased as advocated by some of my
colleagues, as well as the staff report. That's the report I
referred to in my opening comments.
Mr. Ratner. Sure. I think the initial announcement would
send certain shockwaves and uncertainty to the market that
basically we're saying the U.S. is going to be pulling out of
the global fossil fuel industry, whether it's oil or gas and
petroleum products. And eventually, as that happened, you would
see upward pressure on prices, globally, for those products.
Senator Grassley. Okay. And Dr. Cohen, if Democrats had
their way, they would destroy America's fossil fuel production
through excessive regulation and limitless taxation at a time
when Americans can least afford it. In your point of view, what
is the difference between tobacco and fossil fuel commodities?
What impact would a massive oil and gas supply reduction have
on geopolitical conflict and the U.S. economy?
Dr. Cohen. Senator, as I'm saying in my testimony, an
abrupt halt to all fossil fuel production of this country would
be an economic suicide. The fundamental difference between
tobacco and fossil fuel industry is that fossil fuel industry
brings a tangible economic good to the economy. Without it, we
cannot have our transportation, our deliveries, our military
machines of planes, tanks moving around.
So, I hope that nobody in their right mind is advocating
immediate cessation of fossil fuel production.
Senator Grassley. Would you care to comment on the first
part of my question about the difference between tobacco and
fossil fuel commodities?
Dr. Cohen. As I said, tobacco, the science is establishing
that the only thing tobacco does is addiction and health harm.
Fossil fuel, on the other hand, as polluting as it may be,
produces huge amounts of relatively cheap and concentrated
energy. And without it, our economy and our society would
collapse.
Senator Grassley. I apologize for missing your point on
tobacco. My last question.
Dr. Cohen. Yes, sir.
Senator Grassley. In their staff report, the Democrats
condemned the description of natural gas as a bridge fuel. They
call it deception. These are quotes, ``deception,
disinformation, and doublespeak.'' Is this true?
Dr. Cohen. I think vilifying an industry that was the
backbone of U.S. economic growth in the last part of the 19th
century and for all of 20th century is speaking to a certain
agenda. The speakers here talked about methane emissions. Yes,
there are methane emissions, but the leading industry that
contributes to methane emissions is animal husbandry and
agriculture. Nobody talks about that. The fossil fuel industry
produces less methane than agriculture. What are we going to do
about that?
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Senator Grassley. Senator
Padilla. And just for the record, I believe that the deception
related to the characterization of natural gas as a bridge
fuel, has to do with the industry's intentions that it actually
not be a bridge fuel, as the exhibit said that it was a bridge
fuel. But also, a destination fuel for the long term. So, the
deception was pretending that natural gas would be a temporary
bridge fuel in a transition to a clean energy economy when that
was not actually the industry's intention, just to be clear.
Senator Padilla.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA
Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Now, colleagues in
the wake of the Trump Administration's decision to abdicate
U.S. climate leadership, I'm proud to state that my home state
of California stepped up. We stepped up to engage directly with
the international climate community, building coalitions and
reaching bilateral agreements necessary to continue to advance
ambitious climate policies at the time.
And as demonstrated in the Committee documents, Mr. Chair,
and as you've so well pointed out, large oil companies and
trade associations have actively worked to undermine those
efforts and have continued to make investments that are
inconsistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Now, meanwhile, California has continued its global climate
leadership, leading other subnational governments and
organizations across the country under the U.S. Climate
Alliance to keep the Paris targets within reach and to preserve
our environmental progress.
Now, in 2022, when it appeared that oil producers
suppressed supply to drive up prices and rake in record profits
amid the highest inflation in 40 years, California took on the
industry by creating an independent watchdog. The Division of
Petroleum Market Oversight. California also authorized the
California Energy Commission to stop price gouging and further
hold the industry accountable.
The new division will closely monitor the industry daily to
identify unethical or illegal behavior and refer any violation
of law, including industry misconduct or market manipulation to
the State Attorney General for prosecution.
My first question is for Dr. Supran. Among the documents
released by this Committee, is there evidence that the oil
industry coordinated to control prices and exploit consumers?
Dr. Supran. I have yet to review the documents themselves.
As indicated, they were only just released. I've reviewed the
report that accompanied them, so forgive me for only having a
superficial understanding of the documents.
Senator Padilla. But based on that report and your
expertise?
Dr. Supran. Yes, my impression is that the documents reveal
that many of the trade associations and third parties that have
affiliated with these companies have worked often on their
behalf in some cases to do their bidding, in some cases to do
their dirty work when it comes to both disinformation and
lobbying in service of the fossil fuel industry's interests.
Yes.
Senator Padilla. Thank you. Follow-up question for Ms.
Eubanks. From your experience on the tobacco litigation team
with the Department of Justice, how important is it to have a
public entity like the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight
in California to monitor industry and document unethical or
illegal behavior?
Ms. Eubanks. That would've been wonderful. We didn't have
anything like that in our case.
Senator Padilla. But the value here?
Ms. Eubanks. Yes, I think it is value in such a thing.
Senator Padilla. Mr. Chairman, I raise this because--well,
number one, I'm proud of California's leadership. And number
two, our colleague, Senator Kennedy was trying to go on and on
comparing the rise in energy cost between one Administration
and another Administration when the data is absolutely clear.
There was decrease in the supply made available completely
under the control--a choice made by an industry that
significantly raised prices on consumers and so let's put the
responsibility where it deserves to be placed and bring forward
accountability based on that. Dr. Supran.
Dr. Supran. Thank you, Senator. I do recall now one
specific datapoint from the new documents, which revealed that
while Shell Oil Company worked hard to promote a public image
in support of taxing carbon, it fretted internally about the
fact that it was part of the Western States Petroleum
Association, which, as I said, was doing its bidding to try to
kill off a proposal for a carbon tax in Washington State.
Senator Padilla. Thank you very much. And Mr. Chairman, in
closing, just the side-by-side headlines can't make the point
any clearer. When you have record high prices and record
profits, we know exactly what's going on. Consumers are smart.
Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. The Senator's point is well taken. We
were obviously early on concerned that Big Oil was taking
advantage, particularly of Putin's invasion of Ukraine to drive
up prices through the cartel that sets prices for this product.
And sure enough, when something they can't lie about came
forward, which is their financial reports reviewed by the
Securities and Exchange Commission, they reported unprecedented
and massive profits that had resulted from their price hikes
and so I will confirm the Senator's point.
My questions, I guess I'll begin with Dr. Supran because,
first of all, you spent time at Brown University. And second of
all, you mentioned the testimony of Jim Hanson, the NASA
expert. My recollection is that original testimony took place
before an Environment Public Works Committee hearing chaired by
Rhode Islander and Rhode Island Republican John Chaffee.
Dr. Supran. Yes, I think that's correct.
Chairman Whitehouse. So, there's a Rhode Island beginning
to all of this, and I wanted to flag that.
Ms. Eubanks, the Judge in your case was Gladys Kessler.
Correct?
Ms. Eubanks. That's correct.
Chairman Whitehouse. She ended up having to write about a
1,200-page opinion.
Ms. Eubanks. Well, it was 1,700 pages and a slip opinion.
Chairman Whitehouse. Yes.
Ms. Eubanks. And it takes up an entire volume of West
Reporters.
Chairman Whitehouse. I just would note that she passed away
last March 16th after an extremely distinguished career and her
diligence in this case really did change the world. You
mentioned that this was a RICO case. It was a civil RICO case,
was it not?
Ms. Eubanks. Yes, it was a civil RICO case. The only
difference, though, in civil and criminal is the burden of
proof.
Chairman Whitehouse. And the penalties.
Ms. Eubanks. Right.
Chairman Whitehouse. So, nobody was going to go to jail----
Ms. Eubanks. Exactly. Exactly.
Chairman Whitehouse [continuing]. As a result of a civil
RICO case.
So, there was nothing that you were doing that was
criminalizing dissent or disagreement.
Ms. Eubanks. That's correct.
Chairman Whitehouse. In fact, what you were doing was
shutting down fraud, is that correct?
Ms. Eubanks. Yes, massive fraud.
Chairman Whitehouse. As found by the Judge and as confirmed
by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Correct?
Ms. Eubanks. All the way up. Yes.
Chairman Whitehouse. So, what was the technical outcome of
Judge Kessler's decision? What did you win in her ruling?
Ms. Eubanks. What we won in her ruling was an ability to
come up with equitable relief that actually would change how
the companies conducted themselves in business, to stop their
youth marketing and the lying about the youth marketing, to
stop the making false statements about the cigarettes, whether
they're addictive or not. All of those things are elements that
we proved under RICO that continued into the present, which was
part of what we had to prove. We also were able to demonstrate
how the companies worked together, not necessarily as a
conspiracy because under RICO you cut through a lot of that and
you're able to----
Chairman Whitehouse. Show an enterprise.
Ms. Eubanks. Exactly. I think more than anything else,
though, more maybe right up there close to the very top, what
that case did is it revealed the facts. American people want
the truth. That's what they want more than anything. They're
smart. They can make decisions about what happens, but they
need to be given the tools. There was huge effort to prevent us
from bringing forward the evidence that we had from the variety
of proceedings, the state cases that had gone forward.
Chairman Whitehouse. Is it fair to say that Judge Kessler's
Order in a nutshell ordered that they were forbidden to lie?
Ms. Eubanks. In a nutshell, yeah. Yes.
Chairman Whitehouse. And indeed, that they were under an
affirmative obligation to correct some of the lying that they
had already done; is that also correct?
Ms. Eubanks. The corrective statements they were called.
Yes. Absolutely.
Chairman Whitehouse. And after that was done, after the
campaign of lies was ordered to be ended and after the
corrections were ordered to be made, did it change the tobacco
industry's behavior?
Ms. Eubanks. Somewhat. In truth, there are still things
that may be going on, but there was a joint order that was
issued just last year, and I haven't heard of any violations of
that order at this point. But there's a mechanism if there were
violations to bring forward claims because of the way the case
was settled, but they resolved those elements of conduct that
the companies were engaging in and put a stop to a lot of that.
Chairman Whitehouse. And when they put a stop to a lot of
that, my observation was that the tobacco industry had to
change its ways and the result was very significant public
health improvements that followed because the campaign of lies
that was enabling the distribution and sales of the product had
terminated and so they had to go on and we saw smoking begin to
decline.
Ms. Eubanks. Well, that's true. We did see a smoking
decline, but one of the things that wasn't resolved was the
issues surrounding menthol. And the other thing that came out
of this, to me, that was so remarkable is that for many years
the companies reacted and said that we don't want to have
regulation. We don't want to be regulated by the federal
government, so guess what, we'll voluntarily agree to this
stack of things. And then, the government says, okay, that's
what we'll do because it's so hard to get this done any other
way.
But meanwhile, back at the ranch they had built a record,
and, in that record, it contained all kinds of this is how we
would regulate tobacco. Once the case was won by us at trial,
then the parties started talking about, well, how about we sort
of agree, Philip Morris, in particular, who had a 52 percent
share of the cigarettes sold in America, saying we're going to
switch sides here now. We're going to be for regulation.
Chairman Whitehouse. That was a result.
Ms. Eubanks. That was a result.
Chairman Whitehouse. And on appeal, how did you do?
Ms. Eubanks. Well, we did just fine. The law was there. The
law was passed. On appeal, we won everything, except for there
was one tiny little piece where one of the defendants was able
to get out of the case, claiming that I withdrew from the
conspiracy. I'm not there anymore.
Chairman Whitehouse. But Judge Kesseler's decision, other
than that, was entirely upheld by the Circuit Court of Appeals?
Ms. Eubanks. Yes, it was.
Chairman Whitehouse. And the Supreme Court took a look at
that case and declined to review.
Ms. Eubanks. They did. Both parties sought cert because
there was more than one statute that we went forward with. RICO
was one. We had the Medicare Reimbursement Act and the Medicare
Secondary Pay of Provisions of the Social Security Act of 1930
something.
Chairman Whitehouse. So, a lawsuit that changed the world
and saved lives. Thank you very much.
That will conclude the hearing. I want to thank the many
colleagues who came and participated. I want to thank all of
the witnesses. Questions for the record, to the extent that
there are questions for the record, I think Dr. Supran had some
questions for the record that he will receive from Senator
Kennedy.
Dr. Supran. Happy to respond.
Chairman Whitehouse. And those questions to Dr. Supran will
be due by 12:00 noon tomorrow. And we would ask Dr. Supran or
anybody else who took a question for the record, anything that
comes by noon tomorrow, to respond to those within 7 days. With
no further business to come before the Committee, the hearing
is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., Wednesday, May 1, 2024, the
hearing was adjourned.]
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