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In Congress, the top Democrats on two committees are asking the Department of Justice to launch a sweeping investigation of big oil corporations. They allege that the companies have deceived the public for decades about their complicity in climate change and willingness to address it. Lisa Desjardins discussed more with Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin.
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
Geoff Bennett:
In Congress, the top Democrats on two committees are asking the Department of Justice to launch a sweeping investigation of big oil corporations.
They allege that the companies have deceived the public for decades about their complicity in climate change and willingness to address it.
Our Lisa Desjardins has more.
Lisa Desjardins:
Senate Budget Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, are asking for the kind of action that DOJ brought against tobacco companies about 20 years ago, but against big oil.
This comes weeks after the two released a joint staff report laying out their findings from a three-year investigation of major oil companies.
And Congressman Raskin joins me now from Capitol Hill.
Congressman, you’re talking about evidence that, more than 50 years ago, big oil companies knew about fossil fuels’ connection to climate change. And then you’re also talking about more modern evidence that they have been deceiving the public. Can you give us some specific examples?
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):
Sure.
Fifty or 60 years ago, they clearly understood that the burning of fossil fuels destabilized the climate and warmed the Earth. And they made a very deliberate decision that, rather than tell government and blow the whistle, they would try to suppress that evidence. And they suppressed the evidence.
And then, as other scientists in other places began to discover the relationship between fossil fuel combustion and increase in the Earth’s temperature and climate change, they denied it and they tried to throw a blanket of uncertainty and confusion over the whole subject.
And even after climate change became a well-accepted and well-acknowledged reality throughout the world of science, they have done whatever they can to try to undermine us making the policy decisions we need to make in order to break from the carbon economy and the carbon model and move to solar energy and wind energy and renewable systems.
So we have very specific evidence of them taking all of those steps, and it goes on even to this day. So we had lots of evidence of it, and we want to turn it over to the Department of Justice. Congress obviously has to work on solutions going forward, as we did in the Infrastructure Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
But we want to make sure that this history is not swept under the rug.
Lisa Desjardins:
I know you also mentioned, for example, some of the public commitments by BP and other companies to the Paris climate agreement and then evidence behind the scenes that they felt like there wasn’t a commitment at all in there.
But I want to talk about what you want to happen next. In your letter to the Department of Justice, you talk about past investigations, specifically the investigation into deceptive practices of the tobacco industry, which you say led to investigations and litigation by state attorneys general and the Department of Justice.
Now, that DOJ tobacco case, of course, was historic. It was a civil case. Are you saying here that you believe big oil is complicit in climate change and the harm from climate change in the way big tobacco was found to be harming Americans with cigarettes?
Rep. Jamie Raskin:
Absolutely. It’s a very close analogy, because the tobacco industry was, of course, profiting from their model, which was to sell people cigarettes, get them addicted to cigarettes and then suppress or cloud the evidence of the carcinogenic effects of smoking on the human body.
And, here, what we have is the entire gas and oil industry — and we’re talking about ExxonMobil, BP, several other companies, which understood the way that fossil fuel combustion produced dramatic changes in the climate and warmed the climate in ways that have been costing humanity hundreds of billions of dollars, and the costs are only going up.
And all of this is to the detriment of the public health and the public safety. So it’s a very close analogy. But, look, we’re Congress. We’re lawmakers, and we have to try to figure out how to get out of this mess. The whole question of civil or criminal liability or culpability lies exclusively with the Department of Justice, and we will let them figure that out.
Lisa Desjardins:
We asked the major oil companies, of course, for comment. They did not respond to us. We also asked the American Petroleum Institute to come join us on the program. Unfortunately, they didn’t respond to that.
But they did give us a response to your letter, writing: “This is another unfounded political charade to distract from persistent inflation and America’s need for more energy, including oil and natural gas. U.S. energy workers are focused on delivering the reliable, affordable oil and natural gas Americans demand and any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
Obviously, moving to renewable fuels can’t happen immediately. How do you respond to the oil industry saying that you’re just playing politics here?
Rep. Jamie Raskin:
Well, we’re at levels of gas and oil production higher than we have seen before. And the economy remains deeply invested and engaged in carbon production.
And, look, the big gas and big oil are culpable primarily for their suppression of these clear scientific findings and facts that they knew of for decades. But all of us are implicated by virtue of our use of the carbon-producing fuels. So it’s not primarily a moral problem in terms of how do we disengage from the carbon model and move to other forms of energy that are not going to present a dagger at the throat of humanity, but all of the scientists are agreed that we can’t keep on going as we have been going on.
Lisa Desjardins:
Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you for joining us. Thanks for your time.
Rep. Jamie Raskin:
You bet.
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Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins
Lisa Desjardins is a correspondent for PBS NewsHour, where she covers news from the U.S. Capitol while also traveling across the country to report on how decisions in Washington affect people where they live and work.
Kyle Midura Kyle Midura
Jackson Hudgins Jackson Hudgins
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