Bakeyah Nelson Pens Opinion Piece in Response to Houston Chronicle
Senate Hearing on Big Oil Deception: New Fossil Fuel Industry Documents and a Call for Climate Accountability
Climate|October 01, 2024
The Senate Budget Committee held a hearing to review a trove of new fossil fuel industry documents that blasted Big Oil for their decades of “climate denial, deception, and doublespeak” and revealed its evolving tactics to delay climate action. The documents provided another inside-look into the persistent greenwashing and propaganda that Big Oil continues to deploy to display a favorable public image while actively fighting against climate policy and operating ‘business as usual’ behind the scenes to protect profits. The report found that the oil companies internally never could dispute the InsideClimate News investigative reporting in 2016, and agree that they have known for 60 years that their products cause climate change.
Past RFF grantee Geoffrey Supran, a climate disinformation scientist at the University of Miami, testified and provided an impressive 256 page written testimony that illustrates how Big Oil is the new Big Tobacco. One of the most compelling testimonies came from Sharon Eubanks, a former Justice Department attorney who successfully sued Big Tobacco companies for lying to the public. Eubanks said that there is enough evidence to make a strong federal RICO legal case against the oil industry, similar to Big Tobacco, for lying about the climate crisis and their outsized role in creating it.
Senator Chris Van Hollen took this opportunity to advocate for RFF’s federal climate superfund bill, which would force companies to internalize the costs of their pollution (RFF pushed for this federal bill in 2021). Senator Bernie Sanders agreed: “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, who lied about that situation, to pick up the bill.”
You can watch the full hearing here.
