The House Oversight Committee will question the leaders of four major American oil companies during a hearing next week to probe the companies’ role in promoting climate change disinformation and the industry’s role in defeating policies to combat climate change, Reuters reports.
Officers of ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron will appear before the committee to follow up to a 2021 hearing in which the committee subpoenaed documents from the companies about their internal deliberations on how to address climate change activism.
Congress wants to review the efforts of the oil companies to downplay or denigrate the research of climate scientists and demean their efforts to alert the public of the dangers posed by climate change. The investigation will concentrate on how much of the accepted science the companies acknowledged internally, versus what they stated publicly. It will also investigate the oil industry’s efforts to sway policy using false information.
The four oil companies are facing internal pressure from board members and stockholders to pivot to producing cleaner fuels and energy. Recently, rogue investors have gained power on the boards–some with controlling shares–and announced intentions of wholesaling changing the model for the businesses that relied on fossil fuels for profits.