Major oil and gas companies have little intention of taking concrete actions to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy solutions despite their public efforts to address climate change, according to a report released Friday by Democrats on the House Oversight CommitteeHouse Oversight Committee.
The committee found Shell, Chevron, BP, and the American Petroleum Institute all made major investments in projects that would protect and entrench the use of fossil fuels, long past the timeline scientists say would be safe to prevent catastrophic climate change despite making climate pledges.
They are basically saying, we are going to increase production, we are going to increase emissions, but we're also going to be able to claim to be this clean tech company, this green company, because we can take some symbolic actions that make it look like we're in the climate fight," said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif, a member of the committee.
He said that the cynicism was breathtaking, and unfortunately, it was quite successful. It has been a successful PR strategy. The committee's Democratic members all signed on to the report, but no Republicans put their name on it.
A Republican press representative on the committee pointed out that Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., made statements during a hearing in October in which he said the investigation was to deliver partisan theater for prime-time news. Oil companies predict a lot of returns on their fossil fuel investments, according to internal documents released by NBC News. A Chevron internal document states that there will be up to $200 billion return over the next 40 years after upscaling oil production off the coast of Australia.
Exxon Mobil and Chevron have announced plans to increase investment in oil projects.
The companies mentioned in the report did not return requests for comment.
The report also found that the companies intentionally misled the public about their plans, and tried to obstruct the Committee's investigation and withhold key documents. These documents show how the fossil fuel industry greenwashed its public image with promises and actions that oil and gas executives knew would not meaningfully reduce emissions, even as the industry moved aggressively to lock in fossil fuel production for decades to come - actions that could doom global efforts to prevent catastrophic climate change, the committee wrote in the report.
Internal documents show oil executives privately admitting that divesting or moving around the accountability of emissions won't have a significant impact on emissions levels. What do we do instead of divesting pour concrete over the oil sands and burning the deed to the land so no one can buy them? One media relations person at Shell wrote an email to a colleague.
The report went further and said the big oil companies have avoided accountability and obstructed the committee's investigation, which was originally launched in September 2021, because they did not comply with the subpoenas for documents issued by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N. Y, chair of the committee.
It was like pulling teeth, Khanna said. Exxon blacked out full pages of its documents and the Chamber of Commerce withheld internal documents, and the report did not provide any reasons for the redactions.
Khanna said that the millions of documents acquired by the committee will be handed over to those with more resources who can act on the information.
He said that's the only way we're going to have accountability. You can't expect a house subcommittee to go up against oil companies that have been misleading American public for 40 years and all of a sudden have accountability.