The environmental group Greenpeace blasted House Republicans Wednesday for attempting to pressure them, and others, into forking over emails to Democratic state attorneys general targeting oil giant Exxon Mobil.
The group’s executive director, Annie Leonard, said the 13 lawmakers pressuring environmental groups are acting to protect the oil company from scrutiny, rather than have it held accountable for possibly covering up the threat posed by climate change.
“The First Amendment protects advocating for regressive and misguided policy, for which Exxon and its enablers are no doubt thankful, but it does not protect fraud,” she said. “If companies publicly denied climate change while knowing all along how dangerous it was, they should be held accountable.”
“Climate change is real, it is caused by carbon pollution, and it is the greatest threat people and our planet have ever faced,” Leonard said in response to a letter the lawmakers sent her group last month. “Exxon knows this — it has known this for decades — but the global oil giant has denied the truth in favor of profits for years.
“It should be held accountable, but this letter from House Republicans seems more like an attempt to protect Exxon from scrutiny,” Leonard said.
The GOP members, led by House science committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, argue that environmental groups and state attorneys general are involved in a coordinated pressure campaign based on politics rather than science.
The Republicans sent letters to Greenpeace and other environmental groups, as well as a contingent of Democratic state attorneys general that have subpoenaed Exxon for documents regarding its findings on climate change.
The attorneys general assert that Exxon suppressed the findings that showed climate change posed a very real public danger. The accusation is built off a Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News report that the company knew in July 1977 that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels would warm the planet.
