Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders joined two other Democratic lawmakers in calling for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate ExxonMobil over a report the company knew burning fossil fuels would harm the environment and hid the results.
The Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News reported in a story earlier this month that the company knew in July 1977 that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels would warm the planet. After 10 years of exploring the problem, ExxonMobil — then just Exxon — decided to “engage in a campaign of denial and disinformation,” lawmakers charged.
In a letter sent Tuesday, Sanders called ExxonMobil’s actions a possible example of corporate fraud that could have violated federal law. Last week, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Mass., sent a similar letter to Lynch.
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“These reports, if true, raise serious allegations of a misinformation campaign that may have caused public harm similar to the tobacco industry’s actions — conduct that led to federal racketeering convictions,” Sanders wrote.
Sanders, currently running second in the Democratic presidential primary, called climate change the most important national security threat during last week’s Democratic presidential primary debate.
Sander wrote that he wants Lynch to form a task force by Dec. 19 to investigate ExxonMobil’s actions.
According to the report, 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.
Most scientists blame the burning of fossil fuels for releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise.
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.
Sanders wrote the company has spent $31 million since 1998 on think tanks and organizations that cast doubt on climate science.
At the same time, the company was building climate change projections into the company’s future plans. Among those plans was future drilling in the Arctic because the polar ice caps would melt.
“Based on available public information, it appears that Exxon knew its product was causing harm to the public, and spent millions to obfuscate the facts in the public discourse,” Sanders wrote.
After Lieu and DeSaulnier sent their letter to Lynch last week, ExxonMobil spokesman Alan Jeffers issued a strong statement denying the claims.
“The media reports that are the basis for their allegations are inaccurate distortions of ExxonMobil’s more than 30-year history of climate research that was conducted in conjunction with the Department of Energy, academics and the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change,” he said. “Suggestions that ExxonMobil suppressed its climate research are completely without merit.”
