United States Representative Jamie Raskin appears before a US Senate Committee on the Budget hearing to examine Big Oil's evolving efforts to avoid accountability for climate change in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC.Rod Lamkey/CP/Zuma
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The fossil fuel industry spent decades sowing doubt about the dangers of burning oil and gas, experts and Democratic lawmakers testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
The Senate budget committee held a hearing to review a report published on Tuesday with the House oversight and accountability committee that they said demonstrates the sector’s shift from explicit climate denial to a more sophisticated strategy of “deception, disinformation and doublespeak.”
“Big oil had to evolve from denial to duplicity,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island Democrat, who chairs the Senate committee.
The revelations, based on hundreds of newly subpoenaed documents, illustrate how oil companies worked to greenwash their image while fighting climate policy behind the scenes.
“Time and again, the biggest oil and gas corporations say one thing for the purposes of public consumption but do something completely different to protect their profits,” Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, testified. “Company officials will admit the terrifying reality of their business........