A top House Republican on Thursday accused the Securities and Exchange Commission of going after Exxon Mobil for not having a politically acceptable view of climate change.
Rep. Lamar Smith, the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, made the accusation in a letter to the SEC requesting documents and communications related to the agency’s investigation of Exxon Mobil. The agency is investigating the oil giant for how it values its oil reserves in the wake of plummeting prices and how it works climate change into its estimations of the company’s future value.
The Texas Republican said the SEC’s investigation could be pressuring Exxon Mobil into accepting climate change research that runs contrary to what the company’s own researchers find.
“The committee is concerned that the SEC, by wielding its enforcement authority against companies like Exxon for its collection and reliance on what is perhaps in the SEC’s view inadequate climate data used to value its assets, advances a prescriptive climate change orthodoxy that may chill further climate change research throughout the public and private scientific (research and development) sector,” Smith said in a statement.
Smith has used his seat as committee chairman to take on the Obama administration and Democratic attorneys general for their climate change views.
A prominent climate change doubter, Smith has fought the administration over a study showing there was no pause in global warming in the last decade. He is now investigating two Democratic AGs who are investigating Exxon Mobil for possibly defrauding its investors by downplaying or burying climate change research.
In his letter sent on Thursday, Smith said the SEC is working with those Democratic attorneys general by investigating Exxon Mobil. Just days before the SEC announced its investigation earlier this week, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced he would conduct a similar investigation.
He wrote it’s possible “the SEC initiated its investigation based on information received from the New York AG,” and therefore “the SEC’s probe may also serve to illustrate the very effects on free scientific inquiry that the committee is currently investigating.”
