EXPOSED: The Fossil Fuel Industry's Big Lie (Part 2)
We report on the Congressional hearings about fossil fuel disinformation that you likely didn’t see in the corporate media.
News Beat is a multi-award-winning podcast that melds hard-hitting journalism with hip-hop to inform, educate, and inspire. In this episode, we follow up on our previous pod about Big Oil greenwashing. Just days after its release, the Congressional Oversight Committee resumed its historic hearings on fossil fuel industry disinformation, providing even more evidence that Big Oil is lying about its climate efforts and demonstrating little appetite privately to transition away from oil and gas.
The bottom line: US oil majors, which have seen their profits soar during the most recent energy crisis, will likely say or do anything to ensure oil and gas production continues to flow. While they may publicly present themselves as stewards of our much-needed clean energy future, their investment in alternative power sources has been marginal. At the same time, they’ve spent decades manipulating the public and lobbying corrupt government officials even as the climate crisis grows more severe, threatening the planet, humanity, and thousands of species. Listen now on your favorite podcast app.
Why We Covered This Topic
We felt like we had no choice but to release an immediate follow-up episode about the fossil fuel industry and its seemingly ever-expanding propaganda machine.
And let’s be honest, we’ve long had a media problem as it relates to climate change. As you no doubt saw, the death of Queen Elizabeth II dominated cable and broadcast news, overshadowing nearly all other news events. It doesn’t appear media czars are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, especially if you juxtapose the coverage of Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico versus the queen’s death. The Category 1 hurricane, which struck nearly five years to the day that Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, inundated the U.S. colony with more than 30 inches of rain, and left the entire island without power.
On Sept. 8, we released an episode about the decades-long propaganda campaign by the fossil fuel industry and its enablers, including powerful advertisement and PR agencies. As we documented, the industry knew for decades that greenhouse gas emissions were harmful and would lead to warming but chose instead to discredit the science in pursuit of mega riches.
Two weeks ago, the House Oversight Committee resumed its hearings on Big Oil disinformation after a 10-month break, during which time its investigation continued behind closed doors. Subpoenas were issued to large oil majors and the trove of documents has been finally made public.
In a memorandum released on Sept. 14, the committee, chaired by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), said: “Contrary to what their pledges imply, fossil fuel companies have not organized their businesses around becoming low-emissions, renewable energy companies. They are devoted to a long-term fossil fuel future.”
“Big Oil’s climate pledges and green advertising focus on unproven
technologies the companies have privately admitted are decades away from implementation,” the memorandum continues.
In one example, the committee obtained an investor presentation from ExxonMobil in which the company said algae-based biofuels are “decades away from the scale we need,” despite investing at least $68 million in advertisements about the technology, which the firm promotes as a possible alternative energy solution.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
The hearings in various congressional committees—chief among them the House Oversight Committee headed by outgoing Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)—are part of a larger probe into the fossil fuel industry that began last October. The inaugural hearing last year was historic because it was the first time U.S. oil giants appeared before Congress to answer for their collective actions.
You’ll hear how the fossil fuel industry’s talking points about reaching net-zero emissions to help stave off the impending global climate catastrophe are essentially bogus. That’s something we reported in our last episode, but was also confirmed by documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee.
Those same internal documents also revealed that Big Oil has little intention of transitioning fully to clean energy. These companies have publicly promoted ostensible solutions to the climate crisis—such as carbon capture and storage, and algae-based biofuels research—knowing full well that these aren’t real options for the planet.
Essentially, the hearings paint a portrait of an industry saying one thing publicly about climate change, while doing the total opposite privately. It’s not surprising, but it should be a major news story. Unfortunately, the media isn’t treating it as such. Thankfully we interviewed the perfect source so you all can be better informed, identify the BS, and spread the word.
Who We Interviewed & What They Said
Emily Sanders is the editorial lead at the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), which works with communities and lawmakers to help hold oil and gas companies accountable for their role in the climate crisis. Sanders is also the founder of CCI’s ExxonKnews Substack newsletter—go check it out!
“These companies knew, they lied, and they're still lying today. They really have not stopped their disinformation campaigns. And, in fact, they've just evolved, and become more savvy, and more pertinent to the moment. But I think what is heartening about this moment, besides all of this accountability that we're seeing, is that…the disinformation really gets louder when we have a chance to actually act on climate change, when they feel that real action is coming down the pike. They get very nervous and they start coming out with more pledges, more justifications. And I think that's something we're seeing right now.”
* On this point specifically, Sanders wanted to give credit to the investigative climate reporter Geoff Dembicki, who shared a similar sentiment with her in an interview for the ExxonKnews Substack.
Additional Resources
Check out the most recent hearing, which is posted on the House Oversight Committee’s YouTube page.
Read the accompanying memorandum summarizing the committee’s findings, which contains revelations found within internal fossil fuel company documents.
Listen to our episode examining how the fossil fuel industry and its PR and marketing allies mislead the public about their ostensible clean energy investments.
One last bit of News Beat promotion, listen to our episode on criminalizing protests. It perfectly sums up how corporations and their allied lawmakers are creating new laws that threaten our First Amendment right to protest—similar to what we heard at the aforementioned hearings. At the time, we reported that state legislators nationwide have proposed dozens of anti-protest bills since the indigenous-led Standing Rock protests in 2016.
We mentioned it already, but make sure you subscribe to the ExxonKnews Substack. Also, go ahead and follow Emily on Twitter.
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News Beat is a multi-award-winning podcast brought to you by Morey Creative Studios and Manny Faces Media.
Audio Editor/Sound Designer/Producer/Host: Manny Faces
Editor-In-Chief/Producer: Christopher Twarowski
Managing Editor/Producer: Rashed Mian
Episode Art: Jeff Main
Executive Producer: Jed Morey