In reaction to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on “Big Oil’s Disinformation Campaign to Prevent Climate Action,” Daniel Mulé, Oxfam America Policy Lead for Extractive Industries Tax and Transparency made the following statement:
“Big Oil companies like Exxon and Chevron have spent decades pushing climate change denialism while obstructing and delaying action to address climate change. They rely on lobby groups like the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Chamber of Commerce to do their dirty work on Capitol Hill, and they disingenuously support actions like a carbon tax or Net Zero commitments that don’t require any meaningful change to their existing business.
“These are the same tactics that Big Oil uses to derail common-sense anti-corruption transparency measures at home and abroad: saying one thing and lobbying for another. It’s also clear that Big Oil is fighting tooth and nail to prevent the elimination of $121 billion in fossil fuel subsidies from the Build Back Better legislation debated in Congress, even as it claims that the petroleum sector should be treated the same as other industries that do not benefit from subsidies. Big Oil companies need to be held accountable for their cynical, duplicitous lobbying efforts that undermine transparency and climate action.
“It is also past time for Congress to end harmful fossil fuel subsidies and cut the oil sector off from corporate welfare. These polluter giveaways not only inflate corporate profits but also propel us toward climate catastrophe that disproportionately harms the most vulnerable – including Black, brown, and Indigenous communities in the US and around the world. Budget savings from subsidy repeal could instead be redirected to support those communities and mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis.
“On the eve of the COP26 global climate conference, the US should be demonstrating leadership on climate, including by ending fossil fuel subsidies, rather than continuing to endanger our planet and threaten vulnerable communities by dragging its feet.”