Forty-five House Democrats signed a letter to the CEOs of six oil companies demanding what they knew about climate change and when.
The letter, dated Monday, was sent to the leaders of ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell and Peabody Energy, according to a copy of obtained by the Washington Examiner. It asks when each company became aware of the effect fossil fuels have on global warming, what that company did with the information and if each company funded groups that deny climate change.
Most climate scientists blame the greenhouse gases emitted from the burning of fossil fuels for warming the Earth.
The letter was sparked by the investigation published in the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News that said ExxonMobil, then just Exxon, knew decades ago that burning fossil fuels contributed to climate change and the company covered up the information.
“We are alarmed by reports stating that Exxon … hid the truth about the role of fossil fuels in influencing climate change and intentionally spread disinformation about climate science,” the letter says.
A copy of the letter became public as it was circulating through the House last month when just 18 lawmakers had signed on. A spokesman for Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., confirmed the letter was sent this week.
Citing the Union of Concerned Scientists, the letter accuses the companies of working together to deceive the public.
The Union of Concerned Scientists “uncovered many internal company documents confirming a massive coordinated campaign of deception conducted by the industry to deceive the public of climate science that even their own scientists confirmed,” the letter says. “These actions included ‘forged letters to Congress, secret funding of a supposedly independent scientist, the creation of fake grassroots organizations, [and] multiple efforts to deliberately manufacture uncertainty about climate science.'”
According to the investigations in the Times and Inside Climate News, ExxonMobil learned in 1977 from a senior scientist that burning fossil fuels would warm the planet. A year later, the company began researching how carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels would affect the planet.
In 1982, the company prepared an internal document on carbon dioxide and climate change that said “major reduction” in fossil fuel use would be needed to avoid catastrophic events. While that was circulating, ExxonMobil didn’t tell regulators about the findings.
Six years after the internal document was produced, ExxonMobil went on the offensive, according to the report. The company began paying for efforts that would cast doubt on climate change, including founding the Global Climate Coalition.
Lieu and Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Mass., sent a letter to the Department of Justice in October asking Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate ExxonMobil. Since then, all the Democratic candidates for president and numerous environmental groups have followed suit. A group of senators has written to ExxonMobil to see if the company secretly funded a group that promoted anti-climate change science.
ExxonMobil has denied the reports.
“We unequivocally reject allegations contained in the letter to Attorney General Lynch from Reps. Lieu and DeSaulnier. Suggestions that ExxonMobil suppressed its climate research are completely without merit,” said company spokesman Alan Jeffers in response to Lieu’s first letter.
The New York Attorney General’s Office is investigating ExxonMobil over claims it covered up its scientists’ findings.
ExxonMobil also has struck back at the reporters, accusing them of taking money from the Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund and not disclosing that information in the reports.
The fund works against investments in fossil fuels and partly financed the project, which involved researchers and reporters from the Columbia School of Journalism. ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel backers have said that calls into question whether anti-fossil fuel groups influenced the investigation.
