[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXAMINING THE OIL INDUSTRY'S
EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE
TRUTH ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 23, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-67
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov
http://www.oversight.house.gov or
http://www.docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
38-304 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Acting Chairwoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Jim Jordan, Ohio, Ranking Minority
Columbia Member
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Harley Rouda, California James Comer, Kentucky
Katie Hill, California Michael Cloud, Texas
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Bob Gibbs, Ohio
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Peter Welch, Vermont Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Jackie Speier, California Chip Roy, Texas
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Mark DeSaulnier, California Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Ro Khanna, California Frank Keller, Pennsylvania
Jimmy Gomez, California
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
David Rapallo, Staff Director
Candyce Phoenix, Subcommittee Staff Director
Amy Stratton, Clerk
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Chairman
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Chip Roy, Texas, Ranking Minority
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Member
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Jimmy Gomez, California Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts Michael Cloud, Texas
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Columbia Frank Keller, Pennsylvania
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on October 23, 2019................................. 1
Witnesses
Dr. Martin Hoffert, Former Exxon Consultant, Professor Emeritus,
Physics, New York University
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Dr. Ed Garvey, Former Exxon Scientist
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Professor, History of Science, Affiliated
Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Ms. Sharon Eubanks, Of Counsel, Henderson Law Firm, PLLC
Oral Statement................................................... 12
Dr. Mustafa Ali, Vice President, Environmental Justice, Climate
and Community Revitalization, National Wildlife Federation
Oral Statement................................................... 14
Ms. Mandy Gunasekara, Founder, Energy 45, Senior Fellow, Life:
Powered Project
Oral Statement................................................... 16
* Written opening statements and statements of the witnesses
are available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document
Repository at: https://docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* Documents entered into the record during this hearing and
Questions for the Record (QFR's) are listed below/available at:
https://docs.house.gov.
* Unanimous Consent: Exxon internal memos dated June 6, 1978,
October 16, 1979, August 3, 1998, October 13, 1997; submitted
by Chairman Raskin.
* American Petroleum Institute Action Plan dated April 3, 1998;
submitted by Chairman Raskin.
EXAMINING THE OIL INDUSTRY'S
EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE
TRUTH ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
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Wednesday, October 23, 2019
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jamie Raskin
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Raskin, Wasserman Schultz, Kelly,
Gomez, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Norton, Roy, Massie, Miller,
Keller, and Comer.
Also present: Representative Comer.
Mr. Raskin. Good morning, everyone. The subcommittee will
now come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized
to declare a recess of this committee at any time.
Today's hearing examines the oil industry's knowledge and
awareness of climate change and how its climate change denial
campaign has affected people of color and vulnerable
populations in our country and around the world.
I will now recognize myself for five minutes, but before
we're going to show a quick video, if we could run that.
While we're cueing that up, I want to welcome all of our
witnesses. Thank you for coming. And thanks to all of our
participants. There are some other hearings going on. Mr.
Zuckerberg is down the hall. And, of course, the impeachment
investigation continues. So members will be coming in and out
as their schedules permit.
Are we okay now? No.
All right. Well, let me go ahead and start with my
statement, and we'll come back to the video.
But before I begin, I want to take a moment to recognize
our beloved colleague and friend, Chairman Elijah Cummings, who
chaired our committee.
He believed with all of his heart and all of his mind that
government must be an instrument for the common good of all the
people. His passion for freedom, for justice, for strong
democracy will infuse the work of this subcommittee and the
committee generally for generations to come.
As our Nation mourns him, many people have been sharing
some of Elijah's most inspirational aphorisms, one of which is
apt for our purposes today. In a 2016 hearing about the
environmental and public health crisis unfolding in Flint,
Michigan, Elijah called on his colleagues to recognize the
moral gravity of the situation, and he said, quote, ``Our
children are the living messages that we send to a future that
we'll never see. The question is, will we rob them of their
destiny? Will we rob them of their dreams? No, we will not do
that.''
His words echo for us in the investigation of climate
change, the civilizational emergency of our times, which
threatens all of the rights and freedoms of the people,
including the right to live.
Climate change is one of the preeminent emergencies facing
our country. The evidence seems overwhelming that for decades
the oil industry understood the lethal threat of climate change
but misled the American people and buried the scientific truth
of climate change. The industry has deprived the people of
crucial information, with predictable and lopsided results.
Working people, without the time or money to fight back against
big oil, are paying the heaviest price now for climate change.
Oil companies like Exxon knew the scientific reality 40
years ago but waged a war of deception that cost us precious
time in the fight to save our planet.
If we can put that slide up on the screen.
In 1977, Exxon scientist James Black told the company's top
executives that fossil fuel usage was releasing enough carbon
dioxide to change the planet's climate.
Two years later, in 1979, an internal Exxon memo noted that
the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere would, quote, ``bring
about dramatic changes in the world's environment.'' That's in
1979 they had a memo pointing that out, that there would be
dramatic changes in the environment.
In a 1981 memo, Exxon executive Roger Cohen cautioned
against understating the threat to our planet, warning that the
Earth's temperature could rise so high that it would, quote,
``produce effects which will indeed be catastrophic, at least
for a substantial fraction of the population.'' That's in 1981
that Exxon executive Roger Cohen was warning of this.
Exxon knew decades ago that climate change was real and
would have devastating consequences if left uncorrected. In
fact, according to Exxon scientist Ed Garvey, who is here
today, Exxon was so certain of its science that it originally
sought to be part of the solution and launched a sophisticated
research program aimed at further understanding the full range
of carbon dioxide's effects on our planet.
To Exxon's credit, its scientists were at the forefront of
this research, and their dire predictions turned out to be
frighteningly accurate.
When faced with the reality of the massive damage fossil
fuels were likely to cause, Exxon could have chosen to present
this truth to the American public, redirect its own research
and development resources, and lead the way to a global shift
toward alternative energy sources.
But this was not the path that Exxon chose. Instead, it
sold off its renewable energy companies, it doubled down on
fossil fuels, and along with other big oil companies like,
Shell and Mobil, it launched an extensive and sinister campaign
of climate denial, undermining the work and the warnings of its
own scientists.
To make matters worse, big oil companies fortified their
own infrastructure against climate change, factoring in the
anticipated rise in temperatures and sea levels when deciding
how and where to build their own infrastructure.
This revealing course of conduct simply gives the game
away. They used their knowledge of climate change to protect
their future profits, while preventing the American people from
acting together to protect our collective future. They used
their knowledge of climate change for purposes of corporate
planning, but publicly denied the reality of climate change for
purposes of national planning.
This contradiction is at the heart of our hearing today.
The oil industry's denial campaign placed private corporate
interests above the national public interest, and now poor and
minority communities are bearing the brunt of the devastating
effects of climate change.
Climate change has already had a disproportionate effect on
low-income communities and communities of color, from New
Orleans to Puerto Rico, the people who are often said to suffer
first and worst.
Rising sea levels threaten to displace coastal and island
communities. Government efforts are already underway to
relocate Native American tribes in Louisiana and Alaska whose
lands are vanishing into the ocean. Immigrants from Central
America are migrating here to escape famine and drought caused
by global warming.
Urban neighborhoods suffer disproportionately from rising
temperatures. In Chairman Cummings' hometown of Baltimore,
lower-income areas of the city were as much as six degrees
hotter than the cooler, wealthier, tree-lined neighborhoods of
the city. Hurricanes and wildfires are increasing in frequency
and intensity, trapping poor people who cannot afford to
evacuate or who struggled to rebuild their lives after losing
everything to floods and flames.
In short, climate change produces the most devastating
effects on those who can least afford to manage it.
The decades-long denial campaign has twisted and perverted
our democracy. By funding climate denial and lobbying against
governmental action, big oil has not only achieved a loud and
distorting voice in the climate change debate, it has also
deprived voters and policymakers of the materials and the
ability necessary to make informed decisions about this
fundamental challenge to the future of human existence.
James Madison said, quote, ``A people who mean to be their
own Governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge
gives.'' The people have been denied the power that knowledge
gives, which means that we've effectively been governed by Big
Oil with respect to climate change.
We are thankfully beginning to see momentum shifting toward
action to prevent the further destruction of our climate
system, but we must remain wary of the feel good commercials
and empty promises by companies that are still intent on
deceiving the public. Exxon and their allies are continuing to
fund climate denialism and explore new oil fields to exploit,
even as the warnings from scientists grow increasingly dire
about our situation.
In closing, I return to the words of Chairman Cummings. At
a climate change hearing in Oversight in April, Elijah noted
that, quote, ``The true measure of leadership is whether we
leave the world better for our children and our grandchildren
and those yet unborn than we found it. Each day that we fail to
act on climate change, we are risking the health and security
of future generations.''
In order to understand and confront the crisis we're
facing, we must recognize the disastrous deception that brought
us to the brink.
As we contemplate how to stop the destruction of our
planet, the oil industry appears committed to perpetuating its
deception. I challenge everyone here today to answer
Congressman Cummings' call. Will we allow climate denial to
continue robbing our children of their destiny and their
dreams?
No, as Elijah said, we will not do that. We will find the
truth, and the truth will start the process of setting us free.
If we act with courage and resolve, the kind that Chairman
Cummings exemplified, the truth will give us a second chance to
get it right.
I think our video is ready, and then I will turn to our
ranking member.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Raskin. Okay. Now I'm delighted to recognize the
ranking member, Mr. Roy from Texas, for his opening statement.
Mr. Roy. I thank the chairman.
Good morning. Before addressing today's hearing, I'd like
to take a moment to express my deepest condolences to the
family of Chairman Elijah Cummings, to my colleagues on this
committee and throughout the body, and also to his staff. I
know it is a great loss.
I know just a couple months ago we were having a pretty
nice sparring session here in this committee, as we are wont to
do on occasion, and I had referenced my son. In the context of
talking about him--my son happened to be here, and he was
sitting back here in a chair, and the chairman graciously--this
was July--asked to meet my son and sit and talk to him. We got
a great photo of my son with the chairman that I will cherish,
and I will miss him dearly, as I know many of us will.
As always, I'd like to thank Chairman Raskin for his work
with the subcommittee. I appreciate it very much and respect
him immensely.
With that, of course, here we go, we'll start our sparring.
I must say, I'm puzzled a little bit as to why the Civil Rights
and Civil Liberties Subcommittee is chosen for this topic. We
have a Subcommittee on the Environment, and I think that might
be a more natural place for it. But here we are.
I would also suggest to you that if you're wondering why
many of our colleagues aren't here, it's in significant part
because the House majority has created a scheduling conflict.
The House majority scheduled depositions today as part of their
inquiry. As a result, members have been forced to choose
between this hearing and the deposition. That choice is not
very easy. So a lot of my colleagues are downstairs, which is
where I would be if I weren't in this hearing right now.
You know, in my opinion, there's been a lot of arbitrary
rules set by the chairman that makes it difficult. A lot of
members feel like they have to be there, because we're not
easily able to go find the transcripts. We're not able to go
see what's going on.
Now, it's not obviously what we're here to discuss, but it
merits at least discussion and recognition that this is what
we're having to deal with, is a body right now without our
ability to have our colleagues be able to see the information
that Mr. Schiff is keeping secreted away in the bunker down
below in a SCIF.
But as to the topic that we're talking about here today, I
think if you look at this, much of today's hearing has been
seemingly orchestrated for some period of time. Some of the
witnesses here today I think have been coordinating for years,
going to meetings and discussing pursuing congressional
hearings and getting sympathetic state attorneys general in an
effort to secure documents from different oil and gas
companies. The purpose of this hearing seemed to be to stir up
a media frenzy and provide a story line for the current court
case going on in New York, a case that isn't necessarily even
involved, isn't even about allegedly covering up the truth
about climate change anymore, but is instead about accounting
disagreements in many respects.
Demonizing companies and the Americans they employ for
political gain does not seem to be a productive use of our
time, while we sit here in an air conditioned hearing room,
powered by natural gas from the Capitol Power Plant. That's
where we sit.
So let's just remember about how our lives are powered,
right here today, with the electricity right here in this room,
the air conditioning, the heat in this building throughout the
winter, a gas-fired power plant, natural gas being the
lifeblood of what we're seeing in a renaissance for energy in
the United States of America, creating jobs and wealth and
opportunity and developing and improving lives around the
world.
Today 815 million people around the world suffer from food
insecurity, 900 million do not have access to electricity, and
every year 3.5 million die of pollution from biomass they burn
inside their homes.
We have significant information demonstrating the explosion
of affordable energy has increased the standard of living and
nearly doubled life expectancies around the world. Over the
past 25 years, more than a billion--a billion--people have
lifted themselves out of poverty due in large part to access to
electricity.
Now, think about that. I was once in a focus group.
Somebody said, ``Well, where do we want to get power?''
``Well, not from coal or gas. No, we don't want to get
power from that.''
``Where do we want to get power?''
The person said, ``From electricity.''
``Where does electricity come from?''
``It comes from a number of sources.''
Texas, by the way, leads the Nation in all-of-the-above
approach, in terms of wind and solar being a significant part
of the grid in Texas. Yes, that great evil bastion of oil and
gas, Texas, that Governor, Governor Perry, who for 14 years was
driving an all-of-the-above approach in Texas.
But at the end of the day, our grid in Texas still is
massively powered by the dense energy that is available in
fossil fuel, making lives better every single day, making a
single mom be able to have access to affordable electricity
every single day.
Unlike the 54 or 55 million people in Europe choosing
between heating and eating every day because of the onerous
regulations placed on them, people in the United States of
America, including the most vulnerable and the most poor among
us, are able to have the lifeblood of power, of electricity,
hospitals that are powered up, where babies have incubators
that work, instead of people squeezing bags in Africa where you
don't have access to power abundantly.
So we sit here today talking about civil rights and civil
liberties? Let's talk about the massive violation of civil
liberties that will occur if we do as Elizabeth Warren has
said: ban fracking. Let's crush the American economy and crush
the jobs in not only Texas but around the United States and ban
fracking in a fit of hysteria, undermining the very civil
liberties of the Americans that depend on that affordable and
available abundant energy.
That's what we should be talking about. That's what we
should be talking about when we're talking about civil
liberties. And that's what I think we hope we'll have the
discussion on today in this hearing.
If you look at the number of people that have been driven
out of poverty over the last 25 years, compare that to the
chart of the doubling, tripling, quadrupling, six times amount
available of gas, oil, and coal powering the world that has
lifted people out of poverty throughout the world and the
United States.
With that, I will yield, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Raskin. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Roy.
I want to welcome our first panel of witnesses. We have Dr.
Ed Garvey, a former scientist with Exxon Corporation; Dr.
Martin Hoffert, a former consultant to Exxon and professor
emeritus of physics at New York University; Dr. Naomi Oreskes,
who is a professor of the history of science and affiliated
professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard
University; we have Sharon Eubanks, Esq., who is of counsel to
the Henderson Law Firm; and, let's see, we have Dr. Mustafa
Ali, who is the vice president, environmental justice climate
and community revitalization at the National Wildlife
Federation; and Mandy Gunasekara, who is the founder of Energy
45, senior fellow at Life: Powered Project.
I'm going to ask all of you to stand if you would and raise
your right hands.
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you God.
Let the record show that all of our witnesses answered in
the affirmative.
Thank you very much. Please be seated. Please speak
directly into the microphones. It's hard to capture voices if
you're too far away. Without objection, all of your written
Statements will be made part of the record.
With that, Dr. Ali, you are now recognized to give a five-
minute presentation of your testimony. Forgive me. We're going
to start with Dr. Hoffert and work our way down this way.
Dr. Hoffert, you're first.
STATEMENT OF MARTIN HOFFERT, FORMER EXXON CONSULTANT, PROFESSOR
EMERITUS, PHYSICS, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Mr. Hoffert. Thank you, sir.
I, too, mourn the passing of Committee Chairman Elijah
Cummings, who was a giant in the quest for bringing the
American Dream to all, all of us.
I want to thank Jamie Raskin, chair of the House
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Ranking
Member Chip Roy, who we just heard, and all the subcommittee
members, for giving me this opportunity to testify about my
personal experience as consultant on the carbon cycle and
climate at Exxon Research and Engineering, the issue that is of
major importance here.
I was recruited to work at Exxon Research as a consultant
by my colleague Andrew Callegari, who headed a group on climate
modeling and the carbon cycle at Exxon, and this was in 1981. I
made it clear that for the Exxon lab science to be credible and
for me to participate the work needed to be published in
reputable science journals that were subject to peer review.
This was welcomed, and though I remained a paid consultant only
until 1987, I continued to publish science work with Exxon
colleagues thereafter. Our group published eight peer-reviewed
papers, three as a paid consultant and five thereafter.
The work focused on understanding the carbon cycle and on
the climatic effects of CO2 emissions and to bring Exxon
colleagues Brian Flannery and Haroon Kheshgi up to speed on the
latest research, be it tutorials and eventually published
papers. These Exxon scientists were excellent researchers and
were soon authoring papers themselves.
I'm gratified that we did important work that is still
cited today. And if I may say so, the quality of the scientific
work at Exxon was high, and these were published in peer-
reviewed journals and incorporated into the knowledge base of
how the Earth was evolving under the influence of fossil fuel
emissions. But it would be a distraction to go into great
technical detail at this point on our findings.
Suffice it to say that our research was consistent with
findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change on human impacts of fossil fuel burning, which
is that they are increasingly having a perceptible influence on
Earth's climate.
Impacts of climate change have become more pronounced over
time. Scarcely a day goes by without news stories of major
wildfires in the American West, river flooding unseen for
hundreds of years, droughts, the disappearance of mountain
glaciers, tundra melts, more intense hurricanes, melting sea
ice in the Arctic, and glacier calving in Antarctica. I should
say, I never thought that I would see that in my lifetime
because of the thermal inertia of the Southern Ocean. Inside
joke.
All of which are consistent with the uncertainty spread of
IPCC model predictions. If anything, adverse climate change
from elevated CO2 is proceeding faster than the average of the
prior IPCC mild projections and fully consistent with what we
knew back in the early 1980's at Exxon.
I worked with Exxon researchers for several reasons. First,
they were excellent scientists who made positive contributions
to the research. Second, I believed that having Exxon
scientists on public papers, acknowledging the reality of
climate change, could help reduce the polarization surrounding
climate change science. And third, I hoped that the work would
help to persuade Exxon to invest in developing energy solutions
the world needed. I have much to say on this topic, but that's
not the focus of this meeting.
I want to emphasize that although my experience with Exxon
researchers was positive, I was greatly distressed by the
climate science denial program campaign that Exxon's front
office launched around the time I stopped working as a
consultant--but not collaborator--for Exxon.
The advertisements that Exxon ran in major newspapers
raising doubt about climate change were contradicted by the
scientific work we had done and continue to do. Exxon was
publicly promoting views that its own scientists knew were
wrong, and we knew that because we were the major group working
on this. This was immoral and has greatly set back efforts to
address climate change.
I cannot see into Exxon management's heart. Whatever its
intent--willful ignorance, stymieing an effective response to
preserve quarterly profits, or simply an incomprehensible
refusal to incorporate their own world class researchers'
results into their business plans, which is demonstrably
counterproductive long-term--what they did was wrong. They
spread doubt about the dangers of climate change when its
researchers were confirming how serious a threat it was.
The effect of this disinformation was to delay action,
internally and externally. They deliberately created doubt when
internal research confirmed how serious a threat it was. As a
result, in my opinion, homes and livelihoods will likely be
destroyed and lives lost.
Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Dr. Hoffert.
Dr. Garvey.
STATEMENT OF ED GARVEY, FORMER EXXON SCIENTIST
Mr. Garvey. Good morning. Let me start also by saying that
I want to express my sympathy to the panel for the loss of the
chair. He was a great man and will be missed.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the
committee. I'm here to testify that Exxon considered rising CO2
levels and the potential for CO2-driven climate change to be of
sufficient concern to commit to a significant research effort
in 1978. I personally participated in the data collection for
this research effort, and I had firsthand knowledge of my
management's objectives in collecting these data. I'd like to
briefly describe to you some of the pertinent events and the
managerial philosophy that was in place during my five-year
tenure at Exxon Research and Engineering Company.
I was hired in 1979 to assist a senior scientist at Exxon,
Dr. Henry Shaw, in the development of a greenhouse gas research
project. Exxon scientists, such as Dr. Black and Dr. Shaw, had
raised this as an issue to the corporation. I was told by Dr.
Shaw that Exxon undertook this research to earn itself a place
at the table among scientists, policymakers, et cetera,
regarding climate change and the potential responses to it.
The research was intended to make an important contribution
to the understanding of CO2 and climate science. The program
was also intended to constitute a uniquely Exxon contribution
to the science.
In developing the program, we worked closely with Drs.
Wallace Broecker and Taro Takahashi, geochemists with Columbia
University. My managers at Exxon felt that a joint
investigation with well-respected researchers, such as these
scientists, would lend credibility to the effort.
By working with leading scientists from academia and by
contributing highly useful research, Exxon felt its opinions
would be taken seriously regarding greenhouse gases and
possible solutions to the problem.
We ultimately selected Exxon International's 500,000-ton
supertanker, the Esso Atlantic, to set up a dedicated
monitoring system. The monitoring equipment would obtain
measurements of CO2 in surface water and in the air as the ship
traversed its normal routes. The program's goal was to
understand the role of the ocean in the global carbon cycle and
its role in storage of anthropogenic CO2.
Exxon expended a very significant effort to design and
support the equipment in the relatively harsh environment on
board the tanker, over $900,000 per year at the program's peak.
Exxon also planned to make known its commitment to the
greenhouse gas studies. The videotapes of me on the ship that
are now on the internet were made by professional photographers
in 1979, with the intention of presenting the program to
shareholders.
The tanker project required the cooperation of multiple
divisions within Exxon: the Exxon Research and Engineering
Company, which employed Dr. Shaw and myself, Exxon
International, and Exxon USA. It was my understanding that the
Exxon corporate board was aware of the project given its
magnitude, approved its implementation, and was kept apprised
of its progress.
Around 1980 or so, unrelated to the tanker project, Exxon
expanded its research efforts into climate modeling. They hired
several scientists from academia, including Dr. Brian Flannery,
as well as Dr. Hoffert, to conduct this line of research.
About two years later, the oil market experienced a
significant downturn. Exxon began to lay off staff across the
corporation and also ended the tanker project abruptly. To that
point, we had published only one journal article on our work. I
have included a copy of the article with my written statement.
With the end of the project, I opted to leave Exxon in 1983
and continue my graduate studies at Columbia. Although I was
very disappointed when Exxon discontinued the study, I am still
grateful for the opportunity I was afforded.
In summary, the importance of my testimony is to note that
Exxon knew of the anthropogenic climate change issue in the
1970's and considered it a sufficiently important problem to
the company, and perhaps to society, that it undertook a major
research effort.
While the research at Exxon did not continue long enough to
fully interpret the results, the data we collected eventually
became part of the scientific work published by Columbia
scientists. Although the corporation chose to discontinue this
research, it continued to fund climate modeling research for at
least several years after it terminated the tanker project.
For the work that I was involved in, Exxon efforts were
intended to reduce the uncertainties associated with climate
change forecasts and CO2 cycling. In both instances, the
corporation was aware of the potential problem caused by rising
CO2 levels.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Dr. Oreskes.
STATEMENT OF NAOMI ORESKES, PROFESSOR, HISTORY OF SCIENCE,
AFFILIATED PROFESSOR, EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCES, HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
Ms. Oreskes. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
speak with you today. My testimony is based on 15 years of
research on the history of climate science and on the history
of attempts by the fossil fuel industry and its allies to
mislead the American people about that science.
Scientists have known since the late 19th century that
carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels had the potential to
change the Earth's climate. By mid-20th century, the issue was
being widely discussed. In 1961, for example, Alvin Weinberg,
the director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, called
carbon dioxide one of the ``big problems'' of the world, by
which he meant a problem, quote, ``on whose solution the entire
future of the human race depends.''
By the late 1960's political leaders were discussing the
issue, too. One example was Henry Jackson, the Democratic
Senator from the state of Washington. In 1969, Jackson wrote to
Lee DuBridge, the science adviser to President Richard Nixon,
reacting to a letter from a constituent who had heard about the
greenhouse effect on television.
Jackson asked DuBridge whether pollution from automobiles
could contribute to the greenhouse effect. DuBridge replied: It
is known that high concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will
warm the climate. There is little doubt that the automobile
contributes a very significant fraction of this carbon dioxide.
Between 1966 and 1970, when Congress held numerous hearings
on air pollution, many leading scientists testified about
carbon dioxide and climate. Their testimony, along with
legislators' detailed and sometimes lengthy discussions of the
issue, helps to explain why the 1970 Clean Air Act explicitly
states that, quote, ``All language referring to the effects on
welfare includes . . . effects on soils, water, crops,
vegetation, weather . . . and climate.''
Fast forward to 1992 when world leaders met in Brazil to
adopt the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which
committed its nearly 200 signatories to prevent, quote,
``dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate
system.'' In signing that convention, President George H.W.
Bush promised, quote, ``concrete action to protect the
planet.''
But that did not happen. And since 1992, climate change has
gone from being a prediction to being a fact. We now have clear
and convincing evidence not only that manmade climate change is
underway, but that it is driving sea level rise, making floods,
fires, heat waves, and hurricanes worse, threatening water
supplies, and adversely affecting human health.
So why did we fail to prevent dangerous climate change? The
answer is not for lack of information or awareness. I submit
that a large part of the answer is the systematic, organized
campaign by the fossil fuel industry and its allies to sow
doubt about the science and prevent meaningful action.
We have heard how ExxonMobil not only knew about the
findings of climate science, but until the 1980's contributed
to that science. However, sometime in the late 1980's or early
1990's, ExxonMobil changed course. Rather than accept the
science and alter its business model appropriately, it made the
fateful decision to fight the facts.
For more than 30 years, the fossil fuel industry has
deliberately and systematically misled the American people. The
details of these efforts are presented in my recent coauthored
report, ``How Americans Were Deliberately Misled About Climate
Change,'' submitted as appendix 4.
In that report we argue that the fossil fuel industry did
not just pollute the air, they also polluted the information
landscape. They did this through false advertising that
misrepresented climate science, by collaborating with trade
organizations and think tanks to reinforce their misleading
messaging, and by attacks, personal attacks, on climate
scientists.
Internal industry documents made clear that these
activities were intended to undermine public support for action
on climate change.
In this sense, disinformation campaigns were adjuncts to
the extensive congressional lobbying aimed at blocking
lawmakers from passing legislation that might meaningfully
address the issue. Between 2000 and 2016, the fossil fuel
industry spent more than $2 billion on congressional lobbying,
outspending environmental organizations and the renewable
energy sector by a ratio of approximately 10 to one.
In our 2010 book, ``Merchants of Doubt,'' Erik Conway and I
showed that the strategies and tactics used by the fossil fuel
industry to disparage climate science, to sow doubt in the
minds of the American people, and to block action were the same
as those used by the tobacco industry.
We further show that this was no coincidence, because many
of the same individuals, PR firms, advertising agencies, and
think tanks were involved in both.
Democracy depends on citizens having access to accurate
information on which to make informed decisions. As a result of
fossil fuel disinformation, the American people have been
denied accurate information about a matter that affects our
lives, our liberty, and our property. And while the industry
has reaped literally billions in profits, hundreds of billions
in profits, we, the American people, are now footing the bill
for the damage.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Dr. Oreskes.
Ms. Eubanks, you're on for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF SHARON EUBANKS, OF COUNSEL, HENDERSON LAW FIRM,
PLLC
Ms. Eubanks. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
appear before this subcommittee today. I'm going to take this
time to amplify some of the more salient points of my written
testimony.
Here in the United States we face a climate emergency.
Climate change poses a fundamental threat to human health,
ecosystems, and property. We see its effects in coastal
flooding, increased severity of storms, changes in
precipitation patterns, and sea level rise.
Climate change, global warming, call it whichever, is
caused by the emission and accumulation of greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere, primarily due to the combustion of fossil
fuels--oil, gas, and coal.
So what did the companies know about global warming, the
fuel companies? When did they know what they knew? What did
they do about it? What legal difference does any of that make?
And can they be held liable for their conduct?
In 1958 the industry as a whole was studying carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere through its industry organization, the
American Petroleum Institute. From 1968 onward, the industry
was repeatedly warned of the climate risks of its products,
including warnings by their own scientists. Indeed, throughout
the 1970's and 1980's, Exxon and other companies and industry
associations, like the American Petroleum Institute, worked at
the forefront of climate science research.
They also funded academic scientists, especially those who
were doing climate modeling. They examined the emerging issue,
both in terms of the existential threat to their business, they
looked for potential technological solutions, including
alternatives to fossil fuels, and evaluated the potential
impacts on society and ecosystems. The oil company scientists
reported their findings to supervisors and executives within
their corporations.
What did these companies do with the knowledge and
information that they amassed about the cause and effects of
global warming? They kept it to themselves. Instead of
disclosure, the industry leaders funded a campaign of
disinformation.
A robust and growing body of documentary evidence
demonstrates that the major oil and gas companies, whose
products are substantially responsible for global greenhouse
emissions and the resulting climate emergency we now face,
these same companies had early and repeated notice and
knowledge of the climate risks and they had plenty of time to
develop ways to avoid or to reduce those risks. Instead, they
chose to mount a campaign of disinformation and denial.
We know they did this, and what's more, we know it from
their own internal documents. In 1998, a memo entitled ``Global
Climate Science Communications Action Plan'' was leaked to the
press. Nicknamed the ``Victory'' memo, it outlines a multiyear,
multimillion-dollar scheme to create uncertainty about well-
established climate science.
It was an elaborate plan. The idea was to recruit and train
a team of scientists to debunk global warming on radio talk
shows, at press briefings, campus workshops, and other types of
public outreach.
The plan was developed by a 13-member group of
communications and PR firms, in addition to the American
Petroleum Institute, Exxon, Chevron, and Southern Company,
which is a major utility. The target of that campaign, you
guys, Congress. Congress is mentioned at least eight times in
this memo. Also targeted are teachers and industry leaders, in
an effort to make those embracing the consensus on climate
change appear to be out of touch with reality.
The project's first goal, as mentioned in the memo,
spotlights Congress, hoping to get a, quote, ``majority of the
American public, including industry leadership, to recognize
that significant uncertainties exist in climate science, and
therefore raise questions about those, e.g., Congress, who
chart the future U.S. course on global climate change.''
The mechanism for sowing confusion about climate science
would be a new educational foundation called the Global Climate
Science Data Center, with an advisory board of respected
climate scientists, so-called, and a two-year budget of $5
million. The center would be a one-stop resource for climate
science for Members of Congress as well as others. Victory
would be achieved, the memo states, when recognition of
uncertainties becomes part of the conventional wisdom.
It appears that some form of the plan was implemented, and
yet that was only the tip of the iceberg. The denial campaign
continues today, particularly in the courtroom.
In my written testimony, I highlight the similarities
between the actions of big tobacco and what we know about the
actions of the fossil fuel industry, similar tactics and lies.
I think of how Henry Waxman showed America the true face of
the tobacco industry, exposing decades of deceit. He conducted
scores of hearings from numerous committees of all aspects of
tobacco. That was congressional oversight, and no one ever said
it was easy.
But legislation is needed, and legislation and oversight
are conjoined. Hearings make a public record that are necessary
and they're proper.
Because of the time when nothing was being done to address
global warming, we are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is
today. We're confronted with the fierce urgency of now. This is
the time for vigorous and positive action, wholly within your
jurisdiction.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Ms. Eubanks.
Dr. Ali, for five minutes you're recognized.
STATEMENT OF MUSTAFA ALI, VICE PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENTAL
JUSTICE, CLIMATE AND COMMUNITY REVITALIZATION, NATIONAL
WILDLIFE FEDERATION
Mr. Ali. Yes. I would also like to raise up the name of
Chairman Cummings, who when I was a Brookings Fellow here on
Capitol Hill, was a mentor to many of us, especially young men
and young women of color.
Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member Roy, and members of the
committee, on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation, our
52 state and territorial affiliates, more than 6 million
members, and environmental justice communities across our
country, thank you for the honor of testifying before you
today.
Today's hearing comes at a crucial time as our most
vulnerable communities are in the crosshairs of both public
health impacts from the burning of fossil fuels and the impacts
of climate change.
My grandmother had a saying: When you know better, do
better. Exxon and other fossil fuel companies have known the
impacts of their industry on our planet and the health of our
most vulnerable communities for decades.
For over 40 years, the environmental justice movement has
been placing a spotlight on the disproportionate health impacts
that have been happening in communities of color, lower-income
communities, and on indigenous lands. They have been
collecting, researching, and analyzing their own data through
citizen science, and working with colleges, universities, and
scientific organizations to highlight those public health
challenges and climate impacts they face on a daily basis.
Health impacts of burning fossil fuels include increased
respiratory issues, exacerbated allergy symptoms, asthma,
cardiovascular disease, and premature death. In the United
States, more than 26 million people have asthma.
Communities have also had to battle the misinformation
campaigns over the years, a handful of fossil fuel companies
that provided funding to scientists to produce biased data.
This analysis is used to deny or understate the negative
impacts of the fossil fuel industry, discredit the practicality
and the value of clean and renewable energy systems, or refute
the very existence of climate change and the role of human
activity on its proliferation.
Environmental justice communities have often had to deal
with the double whammy of fossil fuel pollution that comes from
facilities like those owned and operated by Exxon and others.
They have to deal with the immediate impacts of exposures to
the burning of fossil fuels and to the warming of the oceans
and our planet, which contributes to the increases in
hurricanes, floods, droughts, and wildfires, just to name a
few.
Fossil fuel facilities are disproportionately--let me say
that again--disproportionately located in communities of color.
From southwest Detroit to Baytown, Texas, to Cancer Alley in
Louisiana, communities of color are in the crosshairs of this
pollution and have been told not to worry. More than 100,000
people are dying prematurely from air pollution in our country.
That's more than dying from gun violence.
More than one million African Americans live within a half
mile of oil and natural gas wells, processing, transmission,
and storage facilities, not just including oil refineries; 6.7
million live in counties with refineries, potentially exposing
them to an elevated risk of cancer due to toxic air emissions.
In Tennessee alone, 54 percent of residents living in counties
with oil refineries were African American. For reference,
African Americans make up around 13 percent of the U.S.
population.
Emissions from oil and gas have been linked to over 138,000
asthma attacks and over 100,000 missed school days each year.
Approximately 13.4 percent of African American children
nationwide have asthma, compared to 7.3 percent of White
children. African Americans are exposed to 38 percent more
polluted air than Caucasian Americans and they are 75 percent
more likely to live in fence-line communities than the average
American. Yes, your ZIP Code does determine your health, and
what's next to you plays a big role in how long you might live.
Climate change presents the second whammy. It is a global
and domestic problem, and our most vulnerable communities are
often hit first and worst. Disruptions of physical, biological,
ecological systems can lead to significant impacts to wealth
and health. It's really quite simple, communities of color
carry the burdens for the burning of fossil fuels.
In 2017, there were 16 natural disasters in the United
States that exceeded $1 billion in losses. Hurricane Harvey
dropped 27 trillion gallons of rain over Texas and Louisiana,
with an estimated cost of $125 billion, making it the second-
most expensive natural disaster. Over 72,000 people needed to
be rescued, causing 14,000 National Guard members to be
activated to help.
Community members in the Manchester neighborhood in
Houston, Texas, and Port Arthur, Texas, are severely damaged by
both the water, wind, and the 8.3 million pounds of
unauthorized air pollution released in their communities,
putting their health at risk.
Hurricane trauma creates high levels of anxiety and post-
traumatic stress disorders among those impacted by the storms.
Natural disasters increase stressors, further threatening the
mental health conditions already facing overburdened and
vulnerable communities.
Flood and extreme rains: Heavy participation events, the
heaviest one percent of rainfalls now drop 38 percent more in
the Northeast, 42 percent more in the Midwest, 18 percent----
Mr. Raskin. Dr. Ali, if you could just wrap up, because
your time is up, sir.
Mr. Ali. I can.
All of that being said, our most vulnerable communities are
the ones that are being hit first and worst and being
disproportionately impacted. I look forward to answering your
questions.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much.
And then, Ms. Gunasekara, you're recognized for five
minutes.
STATEMENT OF MANDY GUNASEKARA, FOUNDER, ENERGY 45, SENIOR
FELLOW, LIFE: POWERED PROJECT
Ms. Gunasekara. Thank you. Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member
Roy, and members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today.
Before I start my testimony, I, like many of my colleagues
here, want to express my condolences to the family, this
committee, and the larger community for the passing of
Congressman Cummings. As a former House staffer, I was inspired
by his passion on issues he cared the most, and saw true
statesmanship in his willingness to reach across the aisle and
engage, not always agree, but respectfully engage with his
colleagues.
Climate change is an important issue, and it's one that I
personally worked on while serving in President Trump's
administration. I was proud to have helped author the first-
ever constitutionally viable greenhouse gas emission standard
for our Nation's existing coal-fired power plants, the
Affordable Clean Energy rule, which replaced the famously
stayed Clean Power Plan.
I was also proud to have drafted the legal and policy case
for exiting the Paris Climate Agreement, which represents the
flawed environmental policies of the last administration that
was quick to sell out American workers to curry favor among
international elites.
I was also very proud to be a part of the efforts to
refocus the agency on its core mission: to protect public
health and the environment by addressing tangible issues with
practical solutions.
Whereas the skewed priorities and mismanagement from the
last administration left EPA with the Flint, Michigan, crisis,
the contamination of the Animas River, and an unprecedented
backlog of submitted state environmental compliance plans,
today's EPA is much more efficient and much more effective.
This hearing, like many we've seen under today's extreme
Democrat leadership, is not premised on facts, it's not in
pursuit of a better understanding surrounding complex issues of
national importance, nor is it meant to produce any meaningful
solutions to any of your environmental challenges.
It is an attempt to revive a completely debunked effort
aimed at bankrupting one of our Nation's largest energy
companies. It is the latest product of a politically motivated
campaign hatched years ago by politicians, activists, and well-
funded foundations that want to demonize an entire industry and
paint them as corrupt institutions that have, in their own
words, pushed humanity toward climate chaos.
This hyperbolic rhetoric is dishonest, the purported
policies are ineffective, and it represents all that is wrong
in the mainstream environmental discussion.
Our energy industry and the men and women who work in it
are to be celebrated, not demonized. This country's ability to
harness our vast energy resources in a responsible and an
efficient manner has changed millions of lives for the better.
It is why life expectancy and economic growth, both important
indicators of human flourishing, have significantly improved.
Advancements in fossil-based energy and the development of
modern economies has provided access to live-saving
technologies, like heat during winter, water treatment,
medicine, and refrigeration.
A stark contrast exists today in countries that do not have
sophisticated energy systems or access to affordable, reliable
electricity. In parts of the developing world, life expectancy
today is 10 to 20 years shorter and children under 5 regularly
succumb to preventable diseases.
The reality is that we could change these outcomes by
sharing our successful energy technologies, not by prohibiting
their use as a result of misaligned environmental policies.
Our successful energy industry is also why we lead the
world in environmental progress. Advancements in natural gas
extraction that led to horizontal drilling have been a key
driver of our world-leading emissions reductions. As the
International Energy Agency recently stated, U.S. overall
reductions represent, quote, ``the largest absolute decline
among all countries since 2000.''
We also lead the world in clean air progress. Today we are
breathing the cleanest air on record, having reduced six
criteria pollutants, including lead and ozone, by 74 percent
since 1970. We are also home to the cleanest drinking water in
the world.
Additionally, the Trump administration has prioritized $4
billion of investments in replacing aging infrastructure and
reinvigorated the Superfund program, which has resulted in the
largest number of once-contaminated lands being cleaned up and
reintroduced into productive use.
Because these regulatory and deregulatory actions carefully
balance the costs and benefits, EPA is advancing environmental
protection without forcing the American people to pay excessive
costs, either directly or indirectly, through inflated energy
costs.
This thoughtful approach is especially important for
vulnerable and socio-economically disadvantaged communities
that spend a significantly higher portion of their monthly
income on energy costs. As such, they are significantly
impacted by high-cost environmental policies, some of which
have been promoted by members of this committee, like the Green
New Deal.
A survey by the National Energy Assistance Directors
Association found that in the face of increased energy costs,
low-income and fixed-income Americans will forego trips to the
doctor, keep their house at unsafe temperatures, reduce
medication, and skip meals. No American should be forced to
make these types of unhealthy decisions, and the good news is
that we don't have to pick.
President Trump has demonstrated how the best environmental
actions are focused on balancing the goals of economic growth
alongside reducing pollution, not pitting these interests
against each other.
Thank you again for the opportunity, and I look forward to
your questions.
Mr. Raskin. And thank you for your testimony, Ms.
Gunasekara.
We are going to now launch into our five-minute-per-member
questioning period. We're going to roll with the punches a
little bit because there are so many other hearings that people
are in and out of, and I'm going to begin by yielding the first
five-minute block, which I would ordinarily take, to Mr. Gomez
before he has to go.
Mr. Gomez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
At the beginning, we heard from my colleague from Texas who
said, why are we discussing the issue of climate change in the
Civil Rights Committee and not in the Environmental Committee?
It's because when we have denied science for so long, it led to
a lack of progress and sincerity of trying to deal with this
issue, right, which led to disproportionately impacting people
of color, minorities, people in urban areas.
You know, if you really look, where are we going to see
high rates of asthma? Minority communities. Where are we going
to see a lack of clean air and clean water? Minority
communities. Where are we going to see a heat island effect
where you see rising temperatures scorching cities? In minority
communities. Where are you going to see people paying a
disproportionate amount of their income to keep their houses
cooler? In minority communities.
Yes, minority communities are disproportionately impacted
first and foremost, but we will not be the last communities
that are disproportionately impacted. The people who represent
rural areas, if you do not think that climate change is coming
to your district or to your communities, think again.
Look at Paradise in northern California, devastated by
wildfires. We have so many wildfires that we can't even keep
track of them in California anymore. And these fires don't go
uphill, they go downhill, things that firefighters with years
and decades of experience have never ever seen before.
So denying science leads to a denial that we can actually
tackle this problem. I'm actually proud that this committee,
for the first time, is bringing up this issue in the context of
civil rights, because oftentimes communities of color,
communities that are most impacted are often the ones that are
left behind.
I agree, some policies have to do a better job of targeting
resources. I actually passed a bill when I was in the
California legislature, 35 percent of all dollars to combat
climate change go to the areas that are most disproportionately
impacted by climate change, as well as rural areas. And guess
what? We had a couple Republicans vote for that bill because
they know that their people are also impacted.
So with that, I want to go to my written testimony.
The oil industry's climate-denial campaign represents, I
believe, a distortion of democracy. Everyday Americans simply
don't have the capacity to get their voices heard the way that
the oil industry does, with high dollar lobbyists, fake reports
from well-funded think tanks, and scores of television ads.
So I want to just show one of these examples on how this
works.
Do we have the video? Can we play the video?
[Video shown.]
Mr. Gomez. Well, Dr. Oreskes, can you explain this a little
bit?
Ms. Oreskes. Yes. Thank you very much for the opportunity,
and in particularly to discuss the issue of the distortion of
democracy.
So one of the things we know is that ExxonMobil and other
members of the fossil fuel industry have spent hundreds of
millions of dollars on advertising campaigns, false
advertisements, reports, documents designed to confuse both the
American people and Congress about this issue.
This is just one specific example that we documented in our
work that was produced by the Cato Institute. This clip really
shows you very clearly how this operates. They produced a
report that was designed to look exactly like the National
Climate Impact Assessment, but if you compare the reports, what
you see is that the Cato Institute, which is not a scientific
organization, is actually refuting the findings in the National
Climate Impact Assessment, but they do it in this format that
is extremely confusing.
Mr. Gomez. Why would they do that?
Ms. Oreskes. Well, this is a good question. I mean, you
would have to ask them. But they are part of----
Mr. Gomez. Speculate.
Ms. Oreskes. They are part of a network that they have been
heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry. They have very
strong connections to the Koch family and the Koch Industries.
So it would be plausible to conclude that this was part of a
strategy to prevent action on climate change.
Mr. Gomez. So they're not the only think tank that does
this kind of thing?
Ms. Oreskes. Not at all. We've counted over 30 think tanks
that were involved in the networks that we've studied. The
Royal Society back in 2006 did a study of think tanks that had
been funded just by ExxonMobil alone, so not including Chevron,
Peabody coal, and all the rest. Just Exxon alone had funded 39
different think tanks and organizations that promoted
misleading and inaccurate information about climate change.
Mr. Gomez. Thank you.
I'm out of time, but thank you so much. I now yield back.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Gomez.
I now recognize Mr. Roy for his five minutes.
Mr. Roy. Well, Mr. Chairman, let me first ask for unanimous
consent for Mr. Comer to participate in today's hearings.
Mr. Raskin. Without objection.
Mr. Roy. With that, if Mr. Comer is ready, I will turn it
over to him.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Comer, welcome.
Mr. Roy. I'm not yielding my time, but for him to use his
time.
Mr. Raskin. Fair enough.
Mr. Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all for being here today.
My first questions are going to be for Dr. Garvey and Dr.
Hoffert.
You all, at any time while you were working with
ExxonMobil's Research, was their research out of step with the
academic research community at that time?
Mr. Garvey. No, it was not.
Mr. Hoffert. No, it was not. It was not. It was basically
reinforcing academic research all over the world as reflected
in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which
summarizes all the peer-reviewed research on climate change all
over the world.
Mr. Comer. Was any of your all's work ever published in
scientific journals?
Mr. Garvey. There was one article published from the tanker
project directly, and then some of the data was published in
other articles by Columbia University.
Mr. Hoffert. Yes. Our work was profusely published, and
it's not easy to do. You have to get two peer reviewers. And
these were quality journals.
All in all, and there are eight papers on Exxon's own list
of 100 papers that they wrote or they contributed to, in
climate change that were produced by our group. And as I said
in my introductory statement, from 1981 to 1987, when I was a
paid consultant, and I continued to cooperate after I was a
paid consultant with my Exxon colleagues, we published five
more papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Mr. Comer. Mr. Chairman, the New York attorney general and
many others leading climate change litigation efforts across
the country would have us believe that the oil and gas industry
hid key science for decades from the American public.
Publishing work that is consistent with academic research in
scientific journals seems like an odd way to go about hiding
anything, and I just wanted to make that point.
Now, Ms. Gunasekara, my question for you. Environmental
activists have acknowledged that one of their goals is to
encourage strategic litigation that would bring internal
company documents into the public domain. These documents would
then be used to develop negative narratives about the oil and
gas companies.
Do you believe these lawsuits are really in the best public
interest?
Ms. Gunasekara. No, I don't. I don't believe they're good
for the American people.
And when it comes to what they purport to do, which is
improve the environment, it has no relative impact, whether
you're talking about these frivolous lawsuits protesting the
Keystone XL pipeline or encouraging divestment. That has no
real impact on the environment and it does nothing to advance
the interests of the American people.
Mr. Comer. Well, then, how does taking money from companies
that are driving innovation and giving it to trial lawyers help
the American people?
Ms. Gunasekara. I don't think it helps them at all. I think
that drivers of innovation are where the solutions to any
current and future challenges will come, and it's in the best
interests of policymakers and the American people to seek out
and support these institutions, not to demonize them in the
ways that we've seen from this relative campaign.
Mr. Comer. Right. I know that you were involved in the
President's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate
agreement. Can you talk about the reasoning behind his decision
to do that?
Ms. Gunasekara. Yes, absolutely. It came down to a number
of factors, but most notably the fact that it was going to ship
American jobs overseas to countries like China and India that
don't use basic pollution control technology our industrial
operators have been using for decades.
So you were going to take economic opportunity and jobs,
ship them overseas, and then exacerbate air quality issues,
some of which are finding their way over here to this country,
and undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
Mr. Comer. I think that my questions make a solid point
that at the time the industry was doing exactly what we as
Americans wanted and there was no scientific data to diminish
the job that the oil and gas industry was doing with what
Chairman Roy said in providing our standard of living, fueling
our tremendous economy, doing things that help Americans live
longer than people from other countries.
So this is something that we've talked about in the
Environment Subcommittee many times. We've had this climate
change topic with at least three committee hearings in the
Environment Subcommittee.
So I just wanted to make that statement. Demonizing these
countries, fueling trial attorneys to have more frivolous
lawsuits is not going to achieve any objective that we have
today as we move forward to talk about ways to improve the
climate.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Well, thank you for joining us
today.
And we go now to Ms. Kelly, the pride of Illinois's Second
District.
Ms. Kelly. Why, thank you, Mr. Chair.
We've heard from Dr. Oreskes and Ms. Eubanks about how oil
companies other than Exxon engaged in climate denial. So I want
to turn to some other examples of oil industry deception.
In 1997 a Mobil Oil ad claimed that scientists cannot
predict with certainty if temperatures will increase.
Dr. Hoffert or Dr. Garvey, by 1997 would it be fair to say
that the scientific community had reached its consensus that
global warning was really a threat?
Mr. Hoffert. I think we would probably both agree that that
consensus was forming and had almost been totally clinched.
Scientists are actually very self-critical. That awareness
may not be widespread. But when you publish a result in a
scientific journal, the whole point is to be mercilessly
critical of the result because we want to have faith that what
we're publishing is accurate, it's going to be the basis of
other people's research.
And over time, and you can track this through the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, many of
which were attacked by climate change deniers, there has been
an increasing certainty that humans are responsible for major
climate change. As a matter of fact, geological scientists call
the present era the Anthropocene, meaning that it is humanly
created, the basic changes in the geophysics of the planet.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
Dr. Garvey, any comment?
Mr. Garvey. No, I agree with Dr. Hoffert.
Ms. Kelly. Okay.
Ms. Oreskes. Could I just quickly join in on this?
But this ad is deeply misleading because in 1995 the IPCC
had reported in its second assessment report that the balance
of evidence suggested a discernible human impact on climate. So
there was a consensus among scientists that climate change was
underway.
But this is a classic example of the denialist's tactics by
throwing in certain adjectives, for example, where changes will
occur. That's technically true. It was not possible then and
even now very difficult to say exactly where particular changes
will occur. So by throwing in these little key adjectives, they
present a claim that is deeply misleading and yet difficult to
refute.
Ms. Kelly. Okay. Thank you.
Would it be fair to say that this statement was likely, as
I think you're trying to say, crafted to deceive the American
public about climate change?
Ms. Oreskes. Yes, I think it would be extremely fair to say
that.
Ms. Kelly. Okay.
In 1996, just one year before this ad, Mobil Oil engineers
building facilities along the coast of Nova Scotia factored
climate change, including rising temperatures and sea levels,
into their structural plan. This included raising the height of
their oil rigs an additional two meters above sea level.
Other oil companies took similar precautions to protect
their investments while publicly dismissing the risk of climate
change. In 1989, Shell Oil engineers redesigned a natural gas
pipeline in the North Sea to account for rising sea levels as a
result of global warming.
Dr. Oreskes, would you agree that oil companies took steps
to fortify themselves against the effects of climate change
while simultaneously depriving the American public of the
necessary information to prevent climate change?
Ms. Oreskes. Yes, absolutely.
Ms. Kelly. This stark contrast between public statements
and private action is not just a thing of the past. In recent
years, oil companies have begun to publicly acknowledge the
existence of climate change.
For example, Shell has added a page to their website urging
action to fight climate change, as you can see. On this page
Shell says, and I quote, ``The climate is changing and human
activities appear to be to blame, yet people still question the
science evidence. Why do you think that is? Can there be any
doubt?''
Again, what is behind this supposed change in tune and what
are your thoughts on Shell's assertion that people question the
scientific evidence?
Ms. Oreskes. Well, I mean, it's hard not to want to laugh
at that. I mean, why do we think that that is? Because of the
30-year campaign that Shell participated in to say--to create
doubt and to question the scientific evidence? So again, this
seems to be part of a strategy and tactic to deny their own
role in this confusion.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
Dr. Ali, you have spoken at length about the unequal burden
of climate change and the effects we have seen in communities
of color. In that context, what does it say about the company's
continued oil exploration, say about how they value the lives
of people of color?
Mr. Ali. It says that they don't value the lives of people
of color or they value them less.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you for that statement.
I'm running out of time, so I have to yield back on that.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much.
I would go to Mrs. Miller. You're recognized for five
minutes.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Raskin and Ranking Member
Roy, and thank you all for being here today.
I am proud that my home state of West Virginia fuels the
Nation and the world. Natural gas from my state provides a
cost-efficient and reliable base load to keep the lights on in
our homes, schools, and businesses. West Virginia natural gas
also helps fill in during the times when renewables cannot keep
the lights on.
The United States consumes about 12,000 kilowatts per hour
per capita. Germany and France come in at about 7,000 kilowatts
per hour per capita. Right now, because of American coal, oil,
and natural gas, we have made great strides in ensuring energy
costs remain low and quality of life remains high.
Between 2005 and 2017, the United States reduced emissions
by nearly 1 billion tons, and we are expected to continue to
reduce emissions in 2019 and 2020. We did this by still
utilizing coal, natural gas, and fossil fuels.
Global energy demand is going to continue to grow and
demand for hydrocarbon-based fuels will be crucial to meet this
demand quickly and cost efficiently. Further, it is crucial
that we keep energy production in the United States. We
produce, manufacturer, and export with fewer emissions, employ
millions of Americans, and are able to invest in technology,
like carbon capture, to export around the world.
Dr. Oreskes, thank you for testifying today. Do you
acknowledge that there is a flaw in your study where two-thirds
of the advertorials cited are from two different companies?
Ms. Oreskes. Not at all. I do not agree with that
statement. ExxonMobil is one company. When Exxon and Mobil
merged they became one company and the merged company took on
both the assets and the liabilities of both individual
companies.
Furthermore, in our followup work to the study that you're
referring to, Geoffrey Supran, who's here with me today, and I
have shown that Mobil took out misleading advertisements prior
to the merger, but so did Exxon.
We also know, we also have evidence that scientists at
Mobil, just like scientists at Exxon, were communicating with
academic researchers, were informing their company of the
results of those research----
Mrs. Miller. What year did they merge?
Ms. Oreskes. I'm sorry. I don't remember.
Geoffrey, do you remember the year of the merge?
I'm sorry, I don't remember, but I can get you that
information.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you. Thank you.
Ms. Oreskes. But we can demonstrate that both companies,
both before, and ExxonMobil continued misleading advertisements
after the merger.
Mrs. Miller. I'd like you to prove that.
Moving on, Ms. Gunasekara, can you elaborate how the United
States has been a leader in reducing emissions?
Ms. Gunasekara. Yes, absolutely.
According to the Energy Information Administration here in
the United States, we have reduced our energy-related CO2
emissions by about 14 percent from 2005. Compare that to the
rest of the world that has increased their emissions by 20
percent.
A large driver of this, as I mentioned in my testimony, is
the fact that we have inspired and supported innovations in the
energy industry, fossil-based energy industry, that will
continue to be an important source of reliable and affordable
electricity.
And because we have spurred continued investment in these
types of innovations from extraction to refinement, use, and
then transmission, we have the cleanest, most efficiently
produced energy in the world.
Which is why we spent significantly less, from the Federal
Government perspective, having these types of outcomes, whereas
you look at some places, like Germany and France, that have
embraced these top-down, overarching, expensive approaches,
they spent billions of dollars but don't have equivalent
emission reduction to actually show for it.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
How would moving to a full renewable scheme come at the
detriment to the American jobs, the economy, and the
environment?
Ms. Gunasekara. It would be hugely devastating because it
would make the price of energy immediately go up. Wind and
solar have a role in a diverse energy mix, but not a base load
role. And when it comes to ensuring access to affordable and
reliable energy, you have to have a base load power source that
today is provided by primarily natural gas and coal, as well as
nuclear energy.
So a shift to wind and solar, which is primarily what folks
are talking about in this context, we'd have to get used to
rolling blackouts, because when the wind doesn't blow and the
sun doesn't shine those energy sources don't provide the energy
needed to fuel commerce and to get people to where they need to
go.
So it would not only be hugely detrimental to the day-to-
day life standard of living for everyone, but it would undercut
our ability to compete in an increasing global atmosphere where
jobs and economic productivity would no doubt be shipped to
overseas countries that don't ascribe to environmental
protections that are remotely similar to what we do here in
this country.
Mrs. Miller. So it would be detrimental to everyone?
Ms. Gunasekara. Yes.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
I yield back my time.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Mrs. Miller.
I recognize now the gentlelady from the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, Ms. Pressley.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There's an old adage in my home community that says: When
everyone else catches a cold, Black folks catch pneumonia.
The point is, everyone is sick. The issue is just at
varying degrees of disease, of illness. And that is certainly
true when it comes to the climate crisis. It is felt by all of
us, but the greatest burdens are borne by the most vulnerable
people of color, low-income communities, immigrants, and non-
native English speakers, all communities most at risk of poor
health outcomes and least able to relocate or to rebuild after
a disaster.
And my district, the Massachusetts Seventh, one of the most
vibrant, diverse, and unequal districts in the country, is
certainly not immune. From Chelsea to East Boston many of my
residents are vulnerable to rising sea levels, extreme heat,
and poor air quality. In the Chinatown neighborhood in Boston,
a predominantly immigrant and low-income community that falls
at the crossroads of two major highways, my constituents
breathe some of the most toxic air in all of Boston. Over the
last several years, asthma rates at the Josiah Quincy
Elementary School, which is in the heart of the Chinatown, have
jumped from 18 to 25 percent.
Adding insult to injury, these issues aren't a coincidence.
They are outcomes borne out of decades of racial, economic, and
social injustice, manmade policies that have been worsened by
the greed and deceit of the oil and fossil fuel industry.
Now, burning fossil fuels are one of the greatest drivers
of the climate crisis, and the oil industry has worsened the
problem by delaying action through its denial campaign and
engaging in insidious campaigns to directly embed themselves in
communities most vulnerable.
Dr. Ali, why do oil companies locate their facilities in
these communities and how do cities depend on them?
Mr. Ali. In many instances they feel that these are the
areas of least resistance. When these companies move in
property values go down for the folks who are on the fence
lines, healthcare costs go up because they are being impacted.
And, as you said, there is a systemic racism aspect to this,
and that's one of the reasons that there's a conversation about
civil rights.
So we have to be focused, because what we find is that
communities are being not only impacted, but broken apart.
Communities like Princeville, North Carolina, which was founded
by freed slaves and hit by 100-year and 500-year floods. You
have places like in Louisiana where indigenous folks have had
to move down, at the Isle de Jean Charles, had to move away
from their traditional lands.
We can literally go down the list. You can look in
southwest Detroit in the 42817 where folks are literally right
next to a refinery and they literally can't breathe.
I wish that the Members would actually go to these
communities and spend real time. When you go to the Manchester
community in Houston, Texas, primarily a Latino, hardworking
community, when you roll the windows down in your car you feel
like you're breathing in gasoline fumes, and that is from the
refineries.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Dr. Ali.
And speaking of Texas and Houston, specifically, a major
hub for the oil and gas industry and is known as the world
capital of energy, Houston was also hit very hard by Hurricane
Harvey, a storm which reached unprecedented levels of intensity
because of climate change. Harvey dumped so much rain on
Houston that the National Weather Service had to add new colors
to its rainfall chart in order to effectively map it.
We know evacuation can be expensive. Dr. Ali, yes or no,
when massive storms occur like Hurricanes Harvey or Maria, is
everyone able to evacuate?
Mr. Ali. No.
Ms. Pressley. And who is usually left behind?
Mr. Ali. People of color, low-income communities, and
sometimes indigenous populations.
Ms. Pressley. Eleven different oil refineries, including
Exxon's Baytown, were forced to shut down their operations and
flare off excess chemicals. Now, oil refineries are designed to
run 24/7, so when they shut down it causes massive spikes in
pollution. According to a 2017 news report, Baytown, quote,
``released about double the amount of volatile organic
compound, a broad category of air toxics, than its permit
normally allows,'' unquote.
Dr. Ali, how does this excess pollution affect the people
who aren't able to evacuate the area?
Mr. Ali. They're trapped. They're trapped, and they are
exposed to these chemicals, and they have breathing
difficulties. You find these asthma bursts that happen. You
find people developing liver and kidney disease because of
these additional emissions that are going on.
Ms. Pressley.
[Presiding.] Thank you.
It's clear we must act today. We must act in this moment. I
second the impassioned comments of my colleague, Representative
Gomez, and also express my pride in that this topic is before
the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Committee today,
appropriately so.
I now recognize Mr. Massie for five minutes of questions.
Mr. Massie. Thank you very much.
Dr. Hoffert, do you support a CO2 tax?
Mr. Hoffert. You're asking me directly. Yes, I do but--
sorry. I always forget this.
Mr. Massie. Did you say yes, you support a CO2 tax?
Mr. Hoffert. Yes, but it's not--I don't think the question
is properly formatted.
Mr. Massie. Okay. Well, I get to ask it. I'll ask you
another followup.
Mr. Hoffert. I understand. A carbon tax. Depends on the
details.
Mr. Massie. Reclaiming my time.
Mr. Hoffert. Yes.
Mr. Massie. Reclaiming my time.
Dr. Garvey, do you support a CO2 tax?
Mr. Garvey. I support that the Congress needs to deal with
the problem and decide how best to manage CO2.
Mr. Massie. Do you think it's a good tool to do it?
Mr. Garvey. I'm not a legislature.
Mr. Massie. So you're not qualified to comment on that.
Mr. Garvey. That's correct.
Mr. Massie. Okay. Thank you very much.
Dr. Oreskes, do you support a CO2 tax?
Ms. Oreskes. Well, let me say that I'm not an expert on
taxation policies, but leading economists around the globe,
including my good colleague Nicholas Stern, with whom I have an
op-ed piece in today's New York Times, who wrote the Stern
report, former economist at the World Bank, he and virtually
all of his colleagues do think that carbon pricing is an
effective way to address the issue without damaging the
economy.
Mr. Massie. Okay.
Ms. Eubanks, do you support a CO2 tax?
Ms. Eubanks. Not necessarily.
Mr. Massie. Okay.
Dr. Ali, do you support a CO2 tax?
Mr. Ali. Not if it creates hot spots and hot zones.
Mr. Massie. So there are only two people here that support
a CO2 tax.
Dr. Hoffert, what should the tax be per ton?
Mr. Hoffert. I prefer something called a fee-and-dividend
tax, you're probably familiar with it, because it uses market
mechanisms, and essentially all of the money collected, except
for administrative fees, would be returned to taxpayers. I
think that given the polarization in the United States----
Mr. Massie. Can you tell me what the fee would be?
Mr. Hoffert [continuing]. that would be the most viable way
to----
Mr. Massie. Can you tell me what the fee would be?
Mr. Hoffert. I can't, because I haven't prepared the
specific numbers on that.
Mr. Massie. Okay.
Dr. Oreskes, what would your fee be?
Ms. Oreskes. Well, it wouldn't be my fee. I think that's a
very unfair way of posing the question. I think this whole line
of questioning is a bit weird for this committee. But since you
asked----
Mr. Massie. It's not weird because the presumption--let me
get to my point here, which you all are doing a great job of
making.
The presumption of this hearing being held in the Civil
Rights and Civil Liberties Committee is that somehow raising
the price of energy would help the economically challenged in
our society.
Ms. Oreskes. Okay.
Mr. Massie. Ms. Gunasekara, can you talk about the impact
of the price of energy on----
Ms. Oreskes. Well, could I answer that?
Mr. Massie. No, I'm asking--you had a chance.
Ms. Gunasekara, could you talk about the impact of the
rising price of energy if there were a CO2 tax on vulnerable
populations?
Ms. Gunasekara. Yes. And let me say for the record, I do
not support a tax on CO2, primarily because it would increase
the price of energy and electricity. We know the impacts
because you've seen this happen in Germany where energy and
electricity is now a luxury commodity.
So a significant number of studies were done during the
last administration assessing the impact of cost increases
affiliated with their Clean Power Plan.
One of the studies that stood out to me was from the Black
Chamber of Commerce that found that it would result in hundreds
of thousands of less jobs in the Hispanic and Black
communities, as well as communities where people are living on
fixed-income or low-income budgets.
It would force them to make decisions where they forego
meals, they keep their house at unsafe temperatures, they stop
going to the doctor, and they don't seek out preventive
healthcare because of the costs that they're trying to save in
order to afford expensive electricity.
Mr. Massie. Thank you very much.
Dr. Ali, you stated that most of the refineries are located
in minority communities. Is that true?
Mr. Ali. I said disproportionately located.
Mr. Massie. Disproportionately located. Can you give us an
example of one that's not?
Mr. Ali. That's not located in a community of color?
Mr. Massie. Yes.
Mr. Ali. No, I can't, not at this----
Mr. Massie. Let me give you an example. There's one in my
district, and it provides jobs. It's actually one of the best
things that's ever happened to our district because we have a
problem with brain drain in eastern Kentucky. People grow up,
they want to get an education and get a career in STEM. And the
one opportunity we have is at that refinery.
I worked there three summers while I was a college student.
The only opportunity that I had to get a job in science,
technology, engineering, and math, was at that refinery.
If you could wave a wand and make those refineries go away
from the communities of color, would you do that?
Mr. Ali. I always honor the work that has happened in the
past when we didn't have other opportunities for different
types of energy sources. I would.
Mr. Massie. Would your community be better--would those
communities be better off or worse off without those jobs in
those refineries?
Mr. Ali. That's why we talk about a just transition. That's
why we talk about getting advanced manufacturing opportunities.
That's why we talk about solar, wind, thermal.
Mr. Massie. Would you answer my question? Are you better
off or worse off with that refinery in those communities?
Mr. Ali. You're worse off because of the health impacts,
and you can get other types of industries in those areas.
Mr. Massie. Well, if they leave those communities, please
send another one to my congressional district, because it has
been a godsend to our congressional district, particularly for
the people who need jobs.
Mr. Raskin.
[Presiding.] The gentleman's time is expired.
You can answer the question if you'd like to do.
Mr. Ali. We have a huge amount of opportunity if we make
the proper investments in wind, solar, thermal, tidal, and wave
energy, and some of the new developing opportunities that exist
in that space.
I come from Appalachia. I understand and I honor the
culture of coal in the past. But I also see that other
countries will take advantage of these new opportunities in
this new clean economy if we don't make those investments.
These are jobs that can stay here at home. We can train our
workers. We can make sure that folks who never had an
opportunity to have businesses can start their own businesses.
And I hope that we can make sure that in Kentucky and West
Virginia and Ohio and all across our country we create these
new opportunities for folks.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much.
Okay. I'm going to recognize myself now for five minutes.
I want to start with this. Dr. Oreskes, I noticed a kind of
progression in the arguments denying the science.
Some used to be just a flat-out categorical denial that
climate change is taking place.
Then I started to notice that some of the skeptics were
accepting the science, but they were denying that there was a
role that humanity had played. They said: Well, there's sort of
a natural ebb and flow in the climate.
Then I noticed some of them were accepting that there was
an anthropocentric role in climate change, but they were
arguing that it's actually good for us, that the heating of the
climate will actually have some positive effects.
Others of them say: Well, it's bad for us, but it's too
late at this point to do anything, so we may as well enjoy it.
I wonder, has anybody tried to actually compile a
comprehensive study of the different--the changes in the
evolution of climate denialism?
Ms. Oreskes. Yes, thank you for that question. In our own
work, we've documented this. So have a number of other
scholars. And I think we have actually just witnessed this in
this very last few minutes.
One of the denying and disinforming talking points now is
this claim that carbon pricing will increase the price of
energy. That is false, and it's false on two levels. It's false
because it won't increase the price of energy, it will increase
the price of carbon-based energy.
And that's the whole point. The point is to level the
playing field because carbon-based fuels have received gigantic
subsidies, both in the United States and around the globe, and
to allow renewables to compete on a level playing field.
In addition, and this is very important, so please bear
with me. We used a pricing system to deal with acid rain, and
that was brought in by a Republican President, President George
H.W. Bush, who, under the Clean Air Act amendments which he
signed, introduced a pricing system for the pollution that
caused acid rain. It was an emissions trading system.
Everyone who opposed it said it was going to increase the
price of electricity, and all the same arguments that we've
just heard today were used. And guess what? The price of
electricity in the Midwest fell and we cleaned up acid rain.
Mr. Raskin. I'm curious about what happens to climate
scientists. You mentioned someone named Benjamin Santer. Can
you tell us what happened to him?
Ms. Oreskes. Yes. Well, one of the things we've seen over
the last 30 years are personal attacks on climate scientists
designed to undermine their integrity and credibility so that
the American people will distrust scientists.
So Ben is the scientist who first proved that climate
change could not be attributed to changes in solar radiation.
He was the lead author of a crucial chapter in the second
assessment report of the IPCC. And he became a target of an
organized, systematic effort, led by the George C. Marshall
Institute, one of the think tanks that we've written about,
accusing him of scientific misconduct, accusing him of fraud.
Even though every single person who was involved with the
report denied those claims, all said that he had done nothing
wrong, this was repeated over and over again.
And I'd like to point out----
Mr. Raskin. So he was actually demonized and vilified by
the oil industry----
Ms. Oreskes. Correct.
Mr. Raskin [continuing]. rather than him demonizing them.
Ms. Oreskes. Exactly. Thank you.
And if I could just point out, the George C. Marshall
Institute folded a few years ago. They became the CO2
Coalition. Energy 45, which Ms. Gunasekara represents, is part
of that coalition. This is a coalition with a history of
personal attacks on climate scientists, personal attacks on
loyal employees of the U.S. National Laboratory system.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
So the denial campaign goes beyond distortion of the
climate science. It actually goes into intimidating and
silencing dissenters.
Ms. Eubanks, do I understand correctly that after the New
York attorney general began taking action against Exxon, that
Exxon sued the attorney general? Is that right, Ms. Eubanks.
Ms. Eubanks. Yes. Exxon sued the attorney general and it
also----
Mr. Raskin. Where?
Ms. Eubanks. In Texas.
Mr. Raskin. Why in Texas?
Ms. Eubanks. Friendly forum.
Mr. Raskin. Was there any merit to their suit?
Ms. Eubanks. That was a frivolous lawsuit. The New York
attorney general lawsuit, that's not a frivolous lawsuit.
Mr. Raskin. Was it thrown out? Was that lawsuit thrown out?
Ms. Eubanks. So far it has been. But what was interesting,
furthermore, is that Exxon subpoenaed all of the attorneys who
appeared at a meeting in La Jolla back a few years ago for any
information that they had about a gathering to discuss climate
change and responses to it.
Mr. Raskin. So how does this compare to strategies that
were undertaken by the tobacco companies which retaliated
against people criticizing them?
Ms. Eubanks. They're very much the same, you know. Both
organizations, tobacco, big oil, lied about what they knew and
when they knew it, and as a result, you know, people died,
basically.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
Dr. Hoffert and Dr. Garvey, it seems as if there was a
moment when Exxon was very invested in trying to figure out
what the impact would really be of all of the CO2 emissions and
what might be done. Then it seems as if the strategy changed
and they decided we're just going to try to suppress the
findings and confuse the public about it.
Why do you think that took place? And was there actually a
moment when they decided to change course, Dr. Garvey?
Mr. Garvey. Well, I can say that in 1982, when the oil
market collapsed and there were significant reductions in the
price of oil, Exxon really retrenched in terms of its research
expanse, if you will. At that point in time they began to sell
off major divisions of their research company, things like
lithium battery research and other divisions of the Exxon
Research and Engineering Company, as they retrenched and
focused solely on oil.
So there was really a sea change that occurred sometime in
the mid 80's to the early 1990's where they had gone from this
very broad-based, very future-looking energy company to
becoming an oil company. That was very evident to me as I
watched the different divisions become sold off.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
I'm afraid my time is up. I am going to now recognize Mr.
Roy for his questioning.
Mr. Roy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Oreskes, a quick question. Would you agree with the
statement that scientific studies should be conducted in a
manner that doesn't dictate results and with a methodology that
avoids bias by researchers as a general matter? Yes? No?
Ms. Oreskes. Yes.
Mr. Roy. Is it true that in 2015, 2016, before you
conducted the report that has been discussed a lot, that you
tweeted, quote, ``Did Exxon deliberately mislead the public on
climate change? Hello. Of course they did,'' and that you
tweeted, ``Exxon's actions may have imperiled all of humanity,
it's time to divest''? Yes or no, did you tweet those things
prior to your report?
Ms. Oreskes. I believe it was after the report, but I could
check on that.
Mr. Roy. Okay. Well, I've got data that shows those tweets
were before your 2017 report.
Ms. Oreskes. Okay. Could be. Could be.
Mr. Roy. Is it true that you are at least--you and your
partner or your coauthor are at least partially funded by the
Rockefeller Foundation?
Ms. Oreskes. We received a very small amount of money,
$5,000, from the Rockefeller Family Fund, yes.
Mr. Roy. Okay. Thank you. And did you and a number of the
people that are involved in this discussion about Exxon appear
at a summit in 2012 discussing these issues long before the
report was done in, I think, La Jolla?
Ms. Oreskes. A summit? I'm not----
Mr. Roy. Yes, La Jolla.
Ms. Oreskes. We, as Sharon Eubanks, as Ms. Eubanks just
said, a group of us got together to discuss in La Jolla how we
could address the disinformation campaigns that we had
documented in our research.
Mr. Roy. Okay. Thank you for that answer. So there's a
coordinated effort, at least on whatever side you want to point
to----
Ms. Oreskes. I wouldn't call it coordinated. It was an
academic discussion.
Mr. Roy. Okay. Because there's no coordination in academic
discussions. Let me ask you----
Ms. Oreskes. No. If you've ever been in academia, you know
there's no coordination.
Mr. Roy. In 2018, what was the relative mix of energy
portfolio in the United States? How much of it was fossil fuels
and nuclear versus renewable?
Ms. Oreskes. I believe about 20 percent is renewable
energy.
Mr. Roy. Okay. The data I have has 84 percent as fossil
fuels and nuclear power.
My point being and my question I'd say to Dr. Ali, you
mentioned in response to my colleague from Kentucky, you said
something in the ZIP Code of honoring the culture and talking
about coal with respect to the past because of your history in
Appalachia.
I think my question is then, as we're sitting here, and
this is a hearing looking backward at what Exxon may have said
or done, if I heard you correctly, you're saying you think it's
appropriate to honor the efforts of companies in the past that
produced the energy that is now resulting in 84 percent of the
energy that we have in the United States.
Mr. Ali. I honor the workers. I honor the workers in that
city.
Mr. Roy. Okay. And who employs those workers?
Mr. Ali. Well, of course, they're employed by whomever owns
those respective companies.
Mr. Roy. And who owns those corporations?
Mr. Ali. The owners.
Mr. Roy. The stockholders.
Mr. Ali. Well----
Mr. Roy. And where does that, where do those stocks lie?
Mr. Ali. In the hands of----
Mr. Roy. In many people's retirement accounts.
Here's my point. My point is we have companies that are
creating energy for the world. Eighty-four percent of the
energy that the United States of America uses is produced by
fossil fuels, roughly 63, 64 percent, and 20 percent nuclear.
Which brings me to another point. Dr. Hoffert, yes or no,
do you support nuclear power?
Mr. Hoffert. I do.
Mr. Roy. Dr. Garvey, do you support nuclear power, yes or
no?
Mr. Garvey. I do.
Mr. Roy. Dr. Oreskes, do you support nuclear power?
Ms. Oreskes. I do not.
Mr. Roy. Ms. Eubanks, do you support nuclear power?
Ms. Eubanks. No.
Mr. Roy. Dr. Ali, do you support nuclear power?
Mr. Ali. Not until we learn how to properly be able to deal
with the waste streams that come.
Mr. Roy. Ms. Gunasekara, do you support nuclear power?
Ms. Gunasekara. Yes.
Mr. Roy. Why? Quickly, you may.
Ms. Gunasekara. Well, it's the largest source of reliable
base load energy that is zero emission. It's one of the safest
forms----
Mr. Roy. Right.
Ms. Gunasekara [continuing]. of electricity and will
continue to be a part of our diverse energy----
Mr. Roy. I'm always amazed at those who believe that the
sky is falling within 10 years that will refuse to say that we
should adopt nuclear power. Because if you want abundant energy
to power the United States of America, to get these buildings
lit up, to have electricity flow around the world in order to
make people, lift them out of poverty, the billion people that
we blithely ignore while we go around talking about things that
sound good in Davos and go in the cocktail circuits talking
about climate change, ignoring the 1 billion people that have
been lifted out of poverty, we could solve these problems with
nuclear power.
Yet the left comes in here and says: We don't want to adopt
nuclear power in most respects. I'll give some credit to
Secretary Kerry, who in this very room said, yes, we should
adopt nuclear power, and to Dr. Hoffert for saying so and Dr.
Garvey.
Here's a point that I'd like to make in concluding. My
grandfather-in-law, my wife's grandfather, Alan Key, moved to
the panhandle of Texas in the 1930's after growing up in a
very, very poor household in Arkansas. He lived by himself in a
cabin, dirt floors, worked himself up working for Phillips
Petroleum. For 55 years, he worked for Phillips Petroleum
working in a plant in Phillips just outside of Borger, Texas,
his whole life. He passed away at 94 years, 94-years-old.
His work, working for those companies, allowed my wife, her
brother, to go to Texas A&M University, the children of a
single mom, because he worked his whole life there helping
produce the very lifeblood of our economy.
And forgive me for getting a little aggravated when, yes,
Texas is being attacked directly. I'll put aside all the
highfalutin stuff about what energy does for the rest of the
world. You want to talk about minority impact? Go look at
Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. How do we get power to Africa?
Lifting people out of poverty around the world because of
clean abundant energy that we can make available to the world,
that's what should be our motives, that's what should be our
goals. This is what should be motivating us instead of talking
about what theoretical impacts might be existing here as
opposed to the direct, calculable impacts on people's lives by
clean abundant energy available to them every single day.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Mr. Roy, I just want to say, at
least on behalf of myself, I assume I speak for a lot of people
on the panel, none of you have ever--or at least I've never
been to Davos, and I'm not on the cocktail circuit. I'm pretty
much a prohibitionist and pretty abstemious myself. So I'm not
quite sure who that reference was directed at.
I will say that the witnesses have been very kind in
responding to a series of questions they were not invited to
come here to testify about. What we're looking at is the oil
industry's awareness and knowledge of the impact of their
business on climate change, and what they did and what they
didn't do historically, and how that informs what we're going
to do going forward.
So this has nothing to do with nuclear power. I'm sorry
that some of the witnesses apparently disappointed you in
taking a position for nuclear power. There was no litmus test
on nuclear power or any other issue. We have brought in the
people who we found most expert on the question before us.
All right. With that, I'm going to call on Ms. Wasserman
Schultz, who's recognized for her five minutes of questioning.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
As my colleagues I know mentioned, ExxonMobil has a long,
treacherous history of hiding what it knew about climate
science. But there is no question that multinational mega-
corporation has gotten more slippery with regards to its stance
and actions on climate change. The company now claims to
support the Paris agreement even as Trump is trying to pull us
out of it.
You'll see on the slide here, in a January 2018 blog post,
Exxon public affair's director explained, quote, ``We believe
the risk of climate change is real and we are committed to
being part of the solution.'' However, ExxonMobil's corporate
website recently stated, and I quote, ``Current scientific
understanding provides limited guidance on the likelihood,
magnitude, or timeframe.''
This seems like a double-down on their old-fashioned
playbook of denial and obfuscation to me.
So Dr. Hoffert, do you agree with ExxonMobil's statement
highlighted on the screen, the one that I just read, where they
say that----
Mr. Hoffert. Please read it.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. ``Current scientific understanding
provides limited guidance on the likelihood, magnitude, or
timeframe.''
Mr. Hoffert. Could you please say when that statement was
made?
Mr. Raskin. 2018.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Last year.
Mr. Hoffert. Okay. Of course, that's absolutely incorrect.
As far as something like 90--over 95 percent-- of scientists
who publish in peer-reviewed journals--and that's very
important to us because it means it's been vetted and
critically reviewed--agree that humans are having an effect, a
noticeable effect on climate.
And it's more quantitative than that. As I mentioned
before, we call this era, the era of the Anthropocene, meaning
that humans are now the dominant effect on the environment of
the Earth, for better or worse.
Of course, the evidence--and I've been working on this for
30 years--has increasingly shown that the prediction of climate
change from CO2 emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, has
increased--has eventually caused climate change.
Starting from back in the 1980's, when the Earth was
actually cooling, I remember I was working at the Goddard
Institute for Space Studies, we made an estimate that the
climate change would start----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. My time is shrinking.
Mr. Hoffert. Sorry about that. It's an interesting story.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. It is, I'm confident. And you're a
former Exxon consultant, correct?
Mr. Hoffert. I'm a former Exxon consultant, yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Okay. Thank you so much.
Dr. Garvey, how would you respond to the claim that science
provides limited guidance about the risks posed by climate
change?
Mr. Garvey. Let me just start by saying that I've not
studied climate change for the last 30 years. I was a
researcher at Exxon for 5. But I would say that there's a lot
of information in the literature that provides strong and clear
guidance as to what the planet is likely to be subject to.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And do you believe that ExxonMobil
is committed to being part of the solution?
Mr. Garvey. I don't feel comfortable commenting on that. I
really don't know.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. You don't know. Okay.
Dr. Oreskes, what do you think ExxonMobil is doing--is
trying to do here with scientifically inaccurate statements
like this?
Ms. Oreskes. I think they're trying to do the same thing
that we know they've done for 30 years, which is to confuse
people, to make people think that the issue is not sufficiently
certain as to provide a basis for moving forward.
And if I could just answer the question you put to Mr.
Garvey.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes.
Ms. Oreskes. We know that ExxonMobil is not really
committed to action on climate change because of their
expiration profile.
I'm a geologist by training. I started my career as an
expiration geologist. When you explore for new oil and gas
reserves, you are committing to developing and using those
reserves 20, 30, 40, 50, even 100 years into the future, and
that belies their claim to be committed to this issue.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes. And when they bury a statement
that clearly is the opposite of what their public affairs
director said, that they are essentially trying to speak out of
both sides of their proverbial mouth.
Ms. Oreskes. Exactly.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Dr. Ali, how would you describe the
seriousness with which the company has responded to warnings
that climate change will have disproportionate impacts on
communities of color?
Mr. Ali. I don't think they're serious at all.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. What gives you that feeling?
Mr. Ali. Because they know, one, the impacts that they've
had for decades now on our most vulnerable communities. They
know also that they are going to drive more storms, more
significant climatic events that are going to
disproportionately hurt those communities. So I say that I
don't think they're that serious about the concerns of our most
vulnerable----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Have you noticed that they've taken
any significant steps toward addressing the impact of climate
change and their effect on climate change in communities of
color?
Mr. Ali. I think the best way to answer that is that I've
worked in over 500 communities, I have constant conversations
with the leaders in those communities, and it's never once been
relayed to me that they feel that they are doing anything of
significance to better protect their lives.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much.
And I believe you----
Mr. Roy. If I just might have 10 seconds. I need to correct
the record, because I think I misspoke and said that
grandfather-in-law's name was Alan Key, and it's Alan Reed.
That was my mother-in-law's married name, and I think I
misspoke. So I need to make sure that record gets corrected.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. In the interest of domestic harmony,
without objection, we will allow that.
And now we go to the gentlelady from New York, Ms. Ocasio-
Cortez, for her five minutes of questioning.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank all of our witnesses for coming here
today to testify on very important aspects of one of the most
pressing issues of our time.
Dr. Garvey and Dr. Hoffert, is climate change real?
Mr. Hoffert. Climate change has been taking place over all
geologic history. Climate change from fossil fuels is not only
real, but it is happening at much higher rates than we have
recorded in the geologic record.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Mr. Hoffert. I'm sorry----
Mr. Hoffert. So there is no doubt about that.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Mr. Hoffert. My apologies. I
have to be expeditious with how I ask these questions.
Mr. Hoffert. I understand.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Dr. Garvey, would you agree?
Mr. Garvey. Yes, I would.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Are large corporations' use of fossil
fuels one of the primary causes of climate change that we're
seeing today?
Mr. Hoffert. Yes, is the simple answer.
Mr. Garvey. Same here, yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And how long has there been roughly a
scientific consensus surrounding those two facts?
Mr. Hoffert. I would say roughly 20 years, and that
consensus is of actively working scientists who publish in
peer-reviewed journals.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
And we have documents going back decades showing
specifically that ExxonMobil or Exxon knew about climate
change. In 1977, Exxon scientist James Black told Exxon's top
executives that, quote, ``The most likely manner in which
mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon
dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels.'' This was
in 1977.
This was followed by an internal memo in 1979 which stated
that, quote, ``The present trend of fossil fuel consumption
will cause dramatic environmental effects before the year
2050.''
Dr. Garvey, would you say that the folks you worked with at
Exxon agreed with the consensus on climate change?
Mr. Garvey. Wholeheartedly.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Dr. Hoffert?
Mr. Hoffert. I can testify to after 1981, because I was
working at Exxon with a group that was doing the calculations,
and, of course, we did know that.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Understood.
Dr. Hoffert, your work with Exxon was focused on the carbon
cycle and climate modeling. I have a slide up here. Are you
familiar with this graph from 1982?
Mr. Hoffert. I believe I am. Yes. That is a calculation.
I'm not sure who specifically to attribute it to. It could have
been done by either of the researchers I was working with.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Can you briefly explain what it shows?
Mr. Hoffert. Sure. What it shows is a projection into the
future of carbon dioxide levels and climate change associated
with those carbon dioxide levels coming from fossil fuels. I
don't have time for a detailed explanation, but that's it.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Right, but briefly.
Mr. Hoffert. And it's a very accurate representation of
what today's climate change actually is.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So this was a model from 1982----
Mr. Hoffert. Right.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.--with startlingly accurate projections
into the present.
Mr. Hoffert. That is correct.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. The orange line shows the actual level
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through this year, and the
blue line shows the actual average temperature change.
So in 1982, Exxon accurately--1982, seven years before I
was even born--Exxon accurately predicted that by this year,
2019, the Earth would hit a carbon dioxide concentration of 415
parts per million and a temperature increase of one degree
Celsius.
Dr. Hoffert, is that correct?
Mr. Hoffert. We were excellent scientists.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Yes, you were. Yes, you were.
So they knew. They knew. And I presume they knew what some
of the consequences of that one degree Celsius change would be,
some of them, not all.
Mr. Hoffert. Absolutely. I would like to have an
opportunity to discuss that if someone asks me.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Dr. Hoffert, you have previously said
that Exxon's historic denial was immoral and greatly set back
efforts to address climate change. That's correct, yes?
Mr. Hoffert. That is correct that I said that. I have good
reason to say it.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And in 1998, API 's global science
communications team action plan, which involved Exxon, Chevron,
Southern Company, and more, laid out the industry's denial
campaign. They knew that they were going to dump unknown at
that time amounts of money, but a large investment in a climate
denial and doubt campaign in the United States and around the
world, correct?
Mr. Hoffert. To the best of my knowledge, that's true. But
I didn't know of that personally.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. They said victory would be achieved
when, quote, ``average citizens,'' quote/unquote, understand
uncertainties in climate science.
Dr. Garvey, would you say these goals accurately represent
the mission of Exxon in the past and today?
Mr. Garvey. Not in the past. Certainly not when I was
there.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Would you say that currently the current
environment that is fostered around doubt on scientific
consensus could be a result of lobbying from the fossil fuel
industry?
Mr. Garvey. I would say so, but I should let my cohort--you
should answer that.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Sure. Dr. Oreskes?
Ms. Oreskes. Three hundred and 50 pages on that in my book
``Merchants of Doubt.''
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you very much.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Thank you very much, Ms. Ocasio-
Cortez.
I think what we'll do, because we're really getting
somewhere here, is take another round of questions if everybody
would be up for it.
I'd like to pick up where Ms. Ocasio-Cortez left off, with
the 1998 ``Victory'' memo published by the American Petroleum
Institute, and if we can put that up on the screen.
Ms. Eubanks, let me come to you. You were the prosecutor at
the Department of Justice who led the racketeering case against
big tobacco. Is that right?
Ms. Eubanks. That's right.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. Does this situation remind you of the
tobacco case? As I understand it, the tobacco companies were
perfectly well aware of the connection between smoking and
cancer, but they did everything in their power to obfuscate the
connection and to confuse the public, and that caused, of
course, a lot of unnecessary deaths from cancer.
Are we in a similar posture with respect to the oil
industry's suppression of the truth about climate change and
the confusion of the public?
Ms. Eubanks. Yes, it's very similar. In fact, what the
government did in regards to the tobacco industry is it filed a
racketeering case based upon the misrepresentations that were
made.
And they're very similar when you look at what the oil
companies did here, is they denied that there was a consensus
and at the same time their internal documents show that they
knew that there was a consensus.
Mr. Raskin. But on their behalf, I mean, all they were
really saying was there's uncertainty. Everything about life is
uncertain and scientists are paid to ask questions. What was
really wrong with them saying, ``We don't know, it's not sure,
it's uncertain''? Could the suggestion of uncertainty actually
constitute actionable fraud against the public?
Ms. Eubanks. Well, it really wasn't just uncertainty, it
was--you can tell from the internal documents that they were
certain. So they were misrepresenting factually what the
knowledge was at the time and, therefore, delayed any action
that could have gotten us to solutions much quicker.
Mr. Raskin. So the representation of uncertainty in the
scientific field when, in fact, there is a certainty of
scientific consensus is itself actionable fraud?
Ms. Eubanks. Yes, it is, and it was in the RICO case in
tobacco. And there was an enterprise, a group of organizations,
just like we see in the ``Victory'' memo, who got together to
do this, to work and coordinate their activities. And the
United States prevailed in that case, in the tobacco
litigation, and many people at the time said that that was an
improper use of RICO. It was sustained all the way up the
appeal channel.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. Dr. Oreskes, you seem to have studied the
history of this. Was there a moment when ExxonMobil or Shell or
any of the oil companies were tempted to act as first
responders, to blow the whistle and to say--to try to get
government to address the emergency of climate change with the
requisite seriousness? Or was it always clear to them that they
just wanted to keep a good thing going with the amount of
profit that was being won from the fossil fuel industry?
Ms. Oreskes. Well, I think that would be a very good thing
to investigate.
One of the things we don't know exactly is how the shift
occurred from the good ExxonMobil that we heard about, that was
doing high-quality science, publishing in peer-reviewed
journals, to this period sometime after the late 1980's or
1990's when ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies became
involved in this organized effort to sow doubt.
Mr. Raskin. Yes.
Dr. Ali, I read an interesting book by Jared Diamond called
``Collapse'' in which he talks about how civilizations
collapse. And one of the key signs he invokes is when the
governmental process is captured by specific subgroups, small
special interest groups, to the exclusion of the interests of
the many.
Do you think we are in a situation where our energy policy,
our environmental policy, our public policy has been dictated
by a small subgroup of the society, and what we're trying to do
now, at least what some people are trying to do, is to struggle
for a broader representation in terms of government policy?
Mr. Ali. Yes. The vast majority of citizens in our country
know that climate change is real and they want real action on
it. But we have, in my work at the Environmental Protection
Agency and in other jobs that I've had, I've seen that there is
that small group that have had huge influence in our policy.
And I see that influence also shown here on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Raskin. Are there any other countries on Earth where
the scientific consensus on climate change is being doubted and
interrogated by paid climate skeptics? Are there entire
industries in the U.K. or Germany or France or Canada or Mexico
where people's job is to go out and to try to cast doubt on the
scientific consensus?
Mr. Ali. We see it here in the United States, and probably
the only other place is Russia.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. And is anyone else on the panel aware
that there are climate skeptic industries in other countries?
Yes, Dr. Oreskes.
Ms. Oreskes. Yes. One of the things we showed in our work
is that this began in the United States, it was largely funded
by American industries. But it has spread. We now do see paid
climate denial in Australia, a little bit in Canada, and a
little bit in the United Kingdom. But those are the only
places, and we can show that it came from the United States.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. My time is up.
And, Mr. Roy, you're recognized--or, Mr. Massie, you're
recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Massie. Ms. Gunasekara, can you speak about the impacts
of the Green New Deal, the proposed Green New Deal generally
and then more specifically on low-income communities?
Ms. Gunasekara. Yes, absolutely. Before I get to that,
though, I want to go back to something one of the panelists
said about one of the groups of scientists that I work with on
the CO2 Coalition.
I think it's important to understand that asking questions
in the context of science is not denialism. The very essence of
better scientific understanding is by asking tough questions
and challenging the status quo.
The scientists I know that work at the agency today, at
EPA, that I've worked with internationally, and that I have
worked here in Washington, DC, and across the entire United
States, they ascribe to that.
And what's different in the context of climate change
science compared to other areas of science that I work closely
on, including air quality assessments, is that anyone who
speaks up and mentions some measure of uncertainty, they get
attacked. So much to the point, one of the scientists I work
with that's affiliated with the CO2 Coalition, his office on
the University of Alabama's campus got shot up.
And there is a massive backlash for any scientist willing
to ask tough questions and have some measure of reason and
balance as they are assessing these very complex and
sophisticated issues.
And I think complex and sophisticated is a better
accounting of the current state of the climate science
discussion that is ongoing in a number of different
applications, including the relative sensitivity of the planet
to a mild and manageably warming climate that we have seen and
many have been talking about openly.
So back to your original question, the problem with the
Green New Deal is it's completely unrealistic. It would force
an unnatural shift to renewable energy sources, which we talked
about earlier, would lead to an exponential increase in the
price of electricity. There are significant economic
consequences to that.
There are also significant problems in the fact that the
technology that would be required to maintain access to
reliable source of energy in a system that is overly reliant on
solar and wind requires technology that just doesn't exist. It
requires battery-type technology that, I was looking at
statistics the other day, if all of the energy that's
represented by existing battery power was charged in full, it
could provide New York City with one hour of electricity and
that's it.
Not to say we shouldn't continue to seek out research and
improve those technologies, which will no doubt continue, but
just to say that we should force an unnatural shift to sources
that were never designed to provide base load energy, which is
the most important when it comes to providing affordable,
reliable electricity, you're going to have a host of negative
consequences.
And for the communities, minority communities and low-and
income-fixed communities, we talked about that, too. They spend
a disproportionately higher amount of their take-home income on
energy already. And if you increase that price, what they do is
they make cuts elsewhere, including reducing trips to the
doctor, foregoing meals, and foregoing other important
healthcare initiatives.
So it also has the ability to undercut future employment
opportunities, and you're going to make the price of
electricity go up, and you're also going to take away their
ability to pay for it through a job.
So it's extremely problematic, totally unrealistic, and
fails to recognize the fact that the United States, we already
lead the world in terms of emissions reductions. There's a very
good news story. And it doesn't require restructuring the
entire economy so that it's more aligned with socialism than it
is with the democracy that's produced the innovation and the
positive environmental impacts we're experiencing today.
Mr. Massie. So one of the problems with low-income
communities--and, by the way, this is Appalachia, where I live
as well--is transportation to work. Would the Green New Deal
increase the price of transportation and make it harder for
people who are trapped in these communities to get to work?
Ms. Gunasekara. Yes, I believe some of--a lot of the
details around the Green New Deal and how it would ultimately
be implemented are missing, but an underlying element of it is
to shift vehicles away from internal combustion engine, fossil-
fueled vehicles, into electric vehicles.
And today there's been, after decades of subsidies and
whatnot, electric vehicles represent about three percent of
total cars in use today.
So there's a significant problem in terms of having the
infrastructure to make it to where people could reliably get to
work. And also the costs of the technology are much more
expensive, which is why you see only a few are able to afford
things like the Tesla and things along those lines.
The other thing it ignores, too, is in the context of
electric vehicles there's a lot of minerals in those, in the
batteries, that if you were to suddenly shift and force large
swaths of the population to drive them, there's major mining
implications for that and exacerbation, something I've looked
closely at, of child labor practices in Africa, where cobalt,
which is a huge portion of these batteries, actually comes
from.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Massie. But for the record, I'm not against solar, I'm
not against electric cars. I drive an electric car and my house
is 100 percent solar. But I estimate I pay about twice the cost
for transportation and electricity. So this is not a burden
that we should put on low-income communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Raskin. And thank you for your comments, and thanks for
not exacerbating the mild and manageably warming climate that
we're experiencing today.
I will come now to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for your final five
minutes of questioning.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Gunasekara, you're here advocating--I mentioned--I
heard you mention the CO2 Coalition a few times. You believe
they should have a credible seat at the table in climate
policy, correct?
Ms. Gunasekara. Yes. I believe all scientists should have a
credible seat at the table.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So the CO2 coalition, are you aware that
they are primarily funded by the Mercer family and the Koch
brothers?
Ms. Gunasekara. So I'm not familiar with the makings of the
institution. I just recently came on board as an adviser that
works with them, but I'm not a part of the infrastructure, so
to speak.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I understand. So you may be unwitting to
the fact that this coalition that you're a part of is funded by
the Mercer family and the Koch brothers.
Are you aware that the Koch brothers own oil refineries
across several states in the United States and control some
4,000 miles of gas pipeline and infrastructure?
Ms. Gunasekara. Yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Do you think that there may be any role
in their financing with the CO2 Coalition with the advancement
of their private interests?
Ms. Gunasekara. Again, I don't know about the financing
with regard to the CO2 Coalition.
I'll say my engagement with them, though, is not unwitting,
it is active and inspired and educated, because a lot of these
folks are scientists that have long been diminished and
ignored. And the CO2 Coalition has----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So you knowingly work for the Koch
brothers.
Ms. Gunasekara. And the CO2 Coalition has----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Reclaiming my time. So you knowingly----
Ms. Gunasekara [continuing]. has provided a platform for
them to provide reality and balance in the context of the
climate discussion.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Understood. Thank you for your testimony
that you are not unwittingly working for the Koch brothers.
Dr. Ali, we don't often think about climate change as a
civil rights issue, but global warming is already wreaking
havoc and displacing populations across the country and around
the world.
I've seen your work in climate justice and environmental
justice. Can you talk to me a little bit about the consequences
for communities of color on not acting on climate change?
Mr. Ali. Well, if we don't act, then we are going to lose
more lives. We are going to lose more African American lives,
more Latinx lives, more Asian-Pacific Islander lives, more
indigenous lives. We're going to lose more lives of White low-
income brothers and sisters as well, because all of them are
the ones who are placed right on the front lines of many of
these things that are going on.
When you look at all of these places where the flooding is
going on, you find that there are poor people who are there.
You find that there are communities of colors who are the ones
who, after they are hit, they can't come back home.
If you look in the Little Pee Dee area in South Carolina,
the Little Pee Dee River, folks who are hit by the floods that
came through there now have the burden of having to raise their
homes to be able to get insurance and to be able to come back
home. And if they lose their homes, they lose that generational
wealth. And we see these things playing out all across the
country.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Do you recall roughly how many people
died in Hurricane Katrina?
Mr. Ali. Three thousand-plus.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Three thousand. Do you recall how many
died in Hurricane Maria?
Mr. Ali. Over 3,000.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Yes. So it's around 3,000 as well. So
we're talking about 6,000 predominantly Black and brown lives
that are wiped out.
In terms of the science and the modeling, do we see largely
that it's the global south and communities of color that may be
bearing the brunt of the initial havoc from climate change?
Mr. Ali. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. And least likely
to be able to escape or to make the transitions that others who
maybe have more wealth can do.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And terms of that wealth, the people who
are producing climate change, the folks that are responsible
for the largest amount of emissions, or communities or
corporations, they tend to be predominantly White, correct?
Mr. Ali. Yes, and every study backs that up.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And so I think it's important that we
put into context here there's a difference between an
electricity bill and people's lives. You know, my own
grandfather died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. And we
can't act as though the inertia and history of colonization
doesn't play a role in this, that we didn't treat their lives
equally, as if a different community were hit.
Can you speak a little bit more to some of the specific
communities that you've encountered in your work and the
climate injustices that you've witnessed?
Mr. Ali. Every place from Alaska, with the Gwich'in people,
and a number of others who are losing their culture. They can
no longer fish and hunt in the places because of the changes
that are happening.
Along the Gulf Coast, when you go to Cancer Alley and you
see between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, you know, African
American communities, other low-income communities who moved
there after slavery was there, then all of these petrochemical
facilities, literally as far as you can see, chemical plants,
petrochemical plants, all these different things, and the folks
can't escape because their housing values have now decreased so
much that they can't move anywhere else.
You can literally go across our country and see these
impacts that are happening, and that's the most frustrating
thing about these conversations, is that we never talk about
people's lives. We don't talk about people's lives in
Appalachia in a serious way, about the public health impacts
that are happening to them. We don't talk about the people in
the Rust Belt and the public health impacts that are happening
and how their lives are being cut short also.
We don't have a serious conversation--and I appreciated
what the Congressman shared about, that he had a business
that's there, an industry that's in his community. In
Appalachia, in West Virginia, where I lived, we knew for
decades that the coal industry was constricting and was going
to eventually die out. And politicians were not thinking
critically about what are the new industries that we should be
getting in there.
So when we talk about wind and solar and thermal and all
these other opportunities, we do a disservice to our most
vulnerable communities when we don't provide these new sets of
opportunities for them. And when we don't, and when we prop up
and support this fossil fuel industry that is impacting their
lives, then we have some culpability in that.
And I know no one is intentionally trying to kill people
and hurt people. This issue of the environment has become one
that has become politicized, and it shouldn't be. The
environment should never be politicized.
And we do not have to choose between the environment and
jobs. That is a 20th century paradigm that no longer can be in
place, because the IPCC report, the National Climate Assessment
report, they are very clear. These scientists are not biased.
They are telling us what's about to happen.
And if we are not willing to do what's right, then we are
responsible for our children's lives and our children's
children's lives who are going to have to deal with these
impacts.
Mr. Raskin. All right. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Thank you for that answer.
And we go finally to the Ranking Member, Mr. Roy, for his
final five-minute questioning.
Mr. Roy. I thank the chairman.
I thank my colleagues, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And thanks for us
having additional time.
Ms. Gunasekara, let me ask you a question. Do you know what
the most deadly hurricane has been in North American history to
the best of or at least of our knowledge?
Ms. Gunasekara. I think it was over 100 years ago.
Mr. Roy. Yes. It was in Galveston, Texas. We know well the
damage there.
Do you know what the impact was to minority communities
there.
Ms. Gunasekara. I don't know specifically.
Mr. Roy. Yes, I don't know either, because I don't know
what the racial makeup was in 1900. What I know is, is that
Galveston got crushed and 6,000 to 12,000 people died in 1900.
Let me ask you this question. We've heard a lot about,
again here, the impact on lives, on those who are--whether
they're minority communities or poor, those that we're talking
about in kind of the context of the Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties Subcommittee here.
And my colleague here has raised this question, and I've
raised this question, but I wanted you to explore it a little
bit more, about the direct impact on the lives of the
disadvantaged in the United States of America and/or around the
world if we are to pursue an agenda of ending, for example,
fracking, as at least one leading Democratic Presidential
candidate has suggested.
Ms. Gunasekara. Well, you'd not only put billions--sorry--
millions--up to millions--a couple hundred thousand and up to a
million people out of work in this country alone, you'd be
ascribing the families and the communities that depend on them
as a source of income to a life of potential poverty.
Around the world the implications are even graver. Fossil-
based energy enables the modern economy, and with the modern
economy you have access to life-saving healthcare,
refrigeration for food, all sorts of technologies that are
built on fossil-based energy systems.
And you can change people's lives. There are a billion
people today that don't have access to electricity, and if we
were to give them a reliable source of electricity through the
most efficient technologies that we use here today, with some
of these countries overseas, you'd not only be lifting up the
standard of living in areas where they're living in extreme
poverty, but you'd also be extending their life expectancy, and
they'd be enjoying the benefits of a modern economy that we,
frankly, take for granted in this country.
Mr. Roy. Can I ask you a question? Do you oppose solar
power?
Ms. Gunasekara. No, not at all.
Mr. Roy Wind power?
Ms. Gunasekara. No.
Mr. Roy. Which state is one of the leading states in solar
power--or wind power, I'm sorry, as a percentage of its grid?
Ms. Gunasekara. I believe you said earlier it was Texas. I
was listening.
Mr. Roy. Texas is, if not the leading, one of the leading
sources, you know, of use of solar power--I'm sorry, wind
power--to produce energy for its grid.
This summer, however, because we have been taking down some
of the base load coal-fired plants, we've had some situations
where we were concerned about bumping up against and having to
potentially have rolling blackouts. Why? Because we have
difficulty in getting some of that wind power to places
distributed around the state and to be able to rely on it as a
core element of our grid, empowering our grid.
And I earlier referenced the 84 percent of our overall
power that comes--64 percent for fossil fuels, 20 percent from
nuclear. And my question for you is, when we look backward
here, as this hearing is supposed to be doing with respect to
certain companies about our use of fossil fuels, what would
have been possible in 1980 or 2000 at some point in terms of
powering our grid in the United States of America, for the
lifeblood of people's lives, with solar and/or wind power?
Ms. Gunasekara. You certainly would not have seen the
economic growth we've seen today with the continued use of
coal-fired power plants and the exponential growth that has
occurred alongside of the natural gas boom. You certainly
wouldn't see the historic economic growth we've seen today
under President Trump, where we have 6 million new jobs, the
lowest unemployment rates across the board when it comes to
women, minorities, and other previously disadvantaged
communities that were held captive in poverty.
Mr. Roy. And if I might add, the robust economic growth
that has been led by the state of Texas, significantly, and
that is in significant part because of natural gas and the
ability to export liquefied natural gas. And how important is
the exportation of liquefied natural gas to those countries
around the world for those people who are predominantly
concerned about CO2?
Ms. Gunasekara. It's significantly important from
geopolitical stability, No. 1, and No. 2, there are significant
environmental benefits. There's a recent report from the
National Energy Technology Lab, that did an assessment of
lifecycle emissions affiliated with U.S. LNG sent to European
and Asian markets compared to gas from Russia, and U.S. LNG
shipped to European markets has 41 percent less emissions,
lifecycle emissions, than if those same countries were to
receive natural gas from another predominant producer like
Russia.
So significant implications in terms of reducing overall
emissions but providing energy to the allies who need it abroad
to, again, enable the modern economies that make life so much
better.
Mr. Roy. Thank you, ma'am.
Mr. Raskin. All right. And thank you, Mr. Roy.
Before I close, for the record I want to introduce four
Exxon internal memoranda, dated June 6, 1978, October 16, 1979,
August 3, 1998, and October 13, 1997, as well as the April 3,
1998, American Petroleum Institute Action Plan. Without
objection, those will be admitted into the record.
Mr. Raskin. I want to thank all of our witnesses for really
a remarkable presentation. It was edifying and educational for
us. There are a number of other things going on, on Capitol
Hill today which our subject is connected to in complicated
ways. But nothing was done of more importance today than what
you all have done, and future generations will thank all of you
for participating in this hearing.
And I want to thank Mr. Roy, Mr. Massie, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez,
my colleagues, for coming and being here, and we will continue
to investigate.
Without objection, all members will have five legislative
days within which to submit additional written questions for
the witnesses to the chair, which will be forwarded to each of
you for responses. I ask all of our witnesses to please respond
as promptly as you can to those.
And with that, the hearing is adjourned.
Mr. Roy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Whereupon, at 12:23 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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