Speaker 1: Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. The House Oversight
Speaker 1: Committee has wrapped up its investigation into climate disinformation. They
Speaker 1: haven't released their final report yet, but they have put
Speaker 1: out a memo, and they have also published the last
Speaker 1: batch of documents from the subpoenas that went out in
Speaker 1: this investigation. Between the first batch and dispatch, there are
Speaker 1: about fifteen hundred pages of internal emails, strategy documents, and
Speaker 1: memos from the oil majors and the American Petroleum Institute,
Speaker 1: and they tell a really interesting story. For me, as
Speaker 1: someone who spends a lot of time looking at these
Speaker 1: kinds of documents from the last one hundred years or so,
Speaker 1: what's really striking is just how little the industry's strategy
Speaker 1: has actually changed in the last decades. I guess if
Speaker 1: it ain't broke, don't fix it. I've got longer analysis
Speaker 1: of all of the details in these documents up at
Speaker 1: Drilled podcast dot com and also in the intercept. I'll
Speaker 1: drop links to those in the show notes. But today
Speaker 1: I have with me one of the people who spearheaded
Speaker 1: this investigation, Representative Rocanna. I asked him what really jumped
Speaker 1: out at him in these documents, where the investigation might
Speaker 1: lead in more. That conversation is coming up after this
Speaker 1: quick break.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I'm sure lots of people are asking you questions about
Speaker 2: this report and the new document's coming in, so I'm
Speaker 2: curious to hear, first off, if there was anything in
Speaker 2: this latest batch of documents that particularly jumps out to
Speaker 2: you as very interesting or surprising, or something you want
Speaker 2: to particularly draw folks attention to.
Speaker 3: Two things.
Speaker 4: First, the explicit strategy that greenwashing will give them quote
Speaker 4: a license to further operate in entrenching the fossil fuel industry.
Speaker 4: And you saw that with the American Petroleum Institute and
Speaker 4: Chevron and an MVP and number of companies. The idea is, Okay,
Speaker 4: we'll cut in how we operate our plant, but we're
Speaker 4: going to produce more and ultimately this is going to
Speaker 4: be more emissions, and giving money about being a green
Speaker 4: company actually will allow us to emit more. It's that cynical,
Speaker 4: it's that explicit, it's in the documents. The second thing
Speaker 4: is the culture of bullying, the fact that they want
Speaker 4: bedbug bugs for Sunrise kids in the last tranch of documents.
Speaker 4: And then this tranch. We see that they are going
Speaker 4: after a New York Times reporter, Roco, who covered the hearings,
Speaker 4: pushing her off covering these hearings, trying to silence the
Speaker 4: New York Times and intimidate the New York Times, and
Speaker 4: we see that this has been their strategy with the press.
Speaker 2: That's super interesting actually in the wake of the FTI
Speaker 2: consulting reporting that Heroko did too, and knowing the relationship
Speaker 2: between those guys and Exxon and all of these companies.
Speaker 4: Really Broca's not covering it anymore, so he's been taken off,
Speaker 4: So you know, Unfortunately, the big oil succeeds sometimes when
Speaker 4: they engage in this kind of bullying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. I wanted to talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: the university funding stuff that showed up, I think in
Speaker 2: the BP documents and just the way that they talk
Speaker 2: about how their funding of Princeton in particular and the
Speaker 2: carbon project there allows them to kind of gain insight
Speaker 2: into how their opponents are thinking about these things, and
Speaker 2: also to influence the university and the research that's coming
Speaker 2: out of their something that is a fascination of mind.
Speaker 2: Just why these companies invest so much in university research
Speaker 2: and especially in not just the scientific and technical research,
Speaker 2: but also public policy to have influence there. So I'm
Speaker 2: curious just what you think of that and also the
Speaker 2: extent to which university research does really influence policymaking.
Speaker 4: Well, I am concerned because the huge gifts to these
Speaker 4: research institutions could bias the research. And what you have
Speaker 4: is a strategy by these big old companies to fund
Speaker 4: research both at universities and nonprofits and then have that
Speaker 4: research be seen as quote unquote objective evidence. And we
Speaker 4: need a whole more investigation beyond what our committee did
Speaker 4: on what is the strategy of funding research and how
Speaker 4: objective is that research? And how do you create the
Speaker 4: walls of separation between the fund to get the research
Speaker 4: many which break down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've heard even some of the campus activists
Speaker 2: that are agitating for universities to not take any more
Speaker 2: of this money are asking for step one to just
Speaker 2: be transparency around it. You know that university should disclose
Speaker 2: who they're taking money from and what the terms of
Speaker 2: that money exactly.
Speaker 4: Be a start, just who are you taking the money from,
Speaker 4: what are the conditions? Look if they're giving money to studying,
Speaker 4: you know Shakespearean literature, that's one thing, But if they're
Speaker 4: giving money to have particular research on carbon and climate
Speaker 4: that seems to be much more problematic. That needs to
Speaker 4: at the very least be transparent with clear walls of separation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you think that the documents saying what they do
Speaker 2: about this idea of a bridge fuel and gas will
Speaker 2: put sort of an end to that narrative? Do you
Speaker 2: think it makes it harder for these companies to continue saying, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's a bridge, it's a bridge, it's a bridge. Do
Speaker 2: you expect them to stop even trying to claim it.
Speaker 4: Well, the documents, as you see, shows that they really
Speaker 4: believe it's their end destination.
Speaker 3: They internally are not even talking.
Speaker 4: About it as a bridge. They're just talking about it
Speaker 4: as this is what we're going to be moving towards.
Speaker 4: And that's why it's a wake up call. I think
Speaker 4: for many people. If you care about moving to renewable,
Speaker 4: if you care about moving to energy efficiency, that's in
Speaker 4: direct contradiction with the internal goals of these big oil companies.
Speaker 4: I guess my biggest concern with the big oil companies
Speaker 4: is the lack of honesty, right. I mean, if they
Speaker 4: were out there just saying, look, we are all at
Speaker 4: gas companies. We don't care about this emission thing. That's
Speaker 4: not our problem. This is our business model, this is
Speaker 4: what we're going to do.
Speaker 3: Then I would disagree strongly with it. But they're big,
Speaker 3: honest to what they're doing.
Speaker 4: The problem is that's not what they're representing because they
Speaker 4: know the American public will put up with that. They
Speaker 4: know their own shareholders won't put up with that. So
Speaker 4: they're claiming to be something that they're not. They're claiming
Speaker 4: to be greed what they aren't. And it's the duplicity
Speaker 4: that is actually the most aggravate A gets shocking.
Speaker 2: What do you think could be done on the government
Speaker 2: side of things to not enable that duplicity? So you know,
Speaker 2: the US government hasn't exactly been opposed to gas as
Speaker 2: a bridge viuel itself. So to what extent could even
Speaker 2: you know, the EPA fast treking methane rules for example,
Speaker 2: or fast treking implementation of those rules, or I don't know,
Speaker 2: regulating greenhouse gases under TOSCA, as you know, one petition
Speaker 2: has asked them to do. What are things that could
Speaker 2: be done that would maybe not stop the fossil fuel
Speaker 2: companies from claiming these things but make it harder for
Speaker 2: them to successfully make gas the destination.
Speaker 3: Well, we tried and build back better.
Speaker 4: And originally, as you know, there were rules to have
Speaker 4: penalties for methane emissions. They were taken out partly because
Speaker 4: of API at big oils advertising where there were targeting
Speaker 4: specific members of Congress to oppose the methane rules. So
Speaker 4: now it's up to the agency's EPA being the primary
Speaker 4: one to help through executive action to have rules interpreting
Speaker 4: the Clean Air Act and others that give them the authority.
Speaker 4: And I'm hopeful that we will take action on that.
Speaker 4: Methane is even worse in some ways than others. And
Speaker 4: so let's see what EPA does.
Speaker 2: Given that control of the House is shifting, what could
Speaker 2: happen next with the information that's come out in this report?
Speaker 2: Could the Department of Justice get involved? Could we see
Speaker 2: something in the Senate?
Speaker 3: Well, I can tease some news.
Speaker 4: We're going to be sending the documents to a couple
Speaker 4: of key places, and obviously we still control the White House,
Speaker 4: we still control the Senate, so this isn't the last
Speaker 4: of the investigation.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Interesting, I also wanted to know or just get a
Speaker 2: sense from you of how much do you think the
Speaker 2: current situation with Russia, Ukraine and raising gas prices, all
Speaker 2: of this stuff has impacted this whole conversation. Do you
Speaker 2: get a sense that the oil companies feel like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: no one's going to be paying attention to this stuff
Speaker 2: because we've successfully gotten people to focus on high gas
Speaker 2: prices instead.
Speaker 4: Well, that's definitely the big oil company strategy. But we
Speaker 4: need to push back with the truth. Sheldon white House
Speaker 4: and I have shown how a big oil is actually
Speaker 4: having record profits and that what we need is to
Speaker 4: hold them accountable with a windfall profits tax to lower
Speaker 4: gas prices. And I highly recommend an op ed that
Speaker 4: Sheldon white House wrote with Lindsay Graham saying that if
Speaker 4: America cares about national security and independence from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia,
Speaker 4: Venezuela Petro states, the biggest thing we need to do
Speaker 4: is to move to renewable energy to not be as
Speaker 4: dependent on fossil fuelds. So I think that we have
Speaker 4: to do a better job making the national security case
Speaker 4: at this moment of volatility and precarity because of Ukraine,
Speaker 4: where we could say to people Look, we don't want
Speaker 4: to be behold in this Audi Arabia, we don't want
Speaker 4: to be beholden to Russia, and we don't want to
Speaker 4: be beholden to our own big oil companies. Let's really
Speaker 4: double down on renewable energy.
Speaker 2: What's your response to folks who make the argument that
Speaker 2: nationalizing the fossil fuel industry is also a solution to
Speaker 2: the national security problem or reinstituting the export ban, which
Speaker 2: I imagine would be impossible given the deal with the
Speaker 2: EU that we currently have. But yeah, what's your answer
Speaker 2: to those suggestions.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not for nationalizing it, but I am for
Speaker 4: an export ban exempting our European allies. And that's not
Speaker 4: something radical. That was policy until twenty fifteen, and it
Speaker 4: seems to me we should have some policy that when
Speaker 4: there is volatility on the price of gas, that we
Speaker 4: prioritize the domestic market, and that seems a reasonable thing
Speaker 4: to do the long term. While I support an export ban,
Speaker 4: the real long term solution is a moonshot on renewable energy,
Speaker 4: and we've got to just continue to make the case
Speaker 4: that a moonshut on renewable energy is good for American consumers.
Speaker 4: What better way to lower gas prices than to give
Speaker 4: people an alternative to gas. What better way they have
Speaker 4: national security not dependent on petro states than to have
Speaker 4: a commodity that petro states don't own.
Speaker 3: So I think we have to just be further in
Speaker 3: making that case.
Speaker 2: Do you think that there's a good understanding in the public,
Speaker 2: or in the media for that matter, of how gas
Speaker 2: pricing works, like enough to push back. The industry has
Speaker 2: been very successful at entrenching this narrative that they have
Speaker 2: nothing to do with gas pricing and that it's all
Speaker 2: to do with environmental policy and pour them. Even though
Speaker 2: I do think that the message about profits is starting
Speaker 2: to break through. You know, people are starting to stay
Speaker 2: wait a minute, these companies are historically profitable right now,
Speaker 2: yet they're claiming that they can't do anything about this
Speaker 2: gas price issue. How much do you think that the
Speaker 2: public and the media are are able to push back
Speaker 2: on that narrative.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we need to do more.
Speaker 4: And now they've done a good job in Europe, where
Speaker 4: the big oil companies are paying a windfall profits tax.
Speaker 4: Even conservative governments have done that because in Europe they
Speaker 4: understand that these companies are making huge profits The difference
Speaker 4: here is big oil has big money and they can
Speaker 4: basically have these super packs and they give a lot
Speaker 4: of money to Congress and said it so unlike Europe,
Speaker 4: our politics are distorted by the money and the influence
Speaker 4: of these.
Speaker 3: Big oil companies.
Speaker 4: But we've got to get the facts out there that look,
Speaker 4: we're almost at record production. By twenty twenty three, we're
Speaker 4: gonna have record production in this country. So there's a
Speaker 4: narrative that if we just produced more, that would be
Speaker 4: the issue. That's just not true. We have record production
Speaker 4: on natural gas. What is the issue. The issue is
Speaker 4: that these big oil companies have been making a lot
Speaker 4: of money at a time that they know they could,
Speaker 4: where the price of oil has got up because of
Speaker 4: international markets.
Speaker 3: What is the solution.
Speaker 4: The solution of volatility is to have an alternative product,
Speaker 4: you know, And it's a pretty simple. If cars cost
Speaker 4: a lot of money and then there is a new
Speaker 4: product to be an alternative cars, that'd be less to
Speaker 4: bad for cars. The price would cut out. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: all we're saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was talking to someone in Europe the other
Speaker 2: day about European companies that are complying with these emissions
Speaker 2: reductions in Europe and fighting them in the US, and
Speaker 2: his comment as well. In Europe, it's sort of like
Speaker 2: everyone accepts the fact that climate policy is going to
Speaker 2: happen in the US, they still think there's a possibility
Speaker 2: that they can stop it from happening or delay it
Speaker 2: another ten years. And I think that we see it
Speaker 2: in these documents too, there's a sense that the fight
Speaker 2: is still on, seeing it in the response to the
Speaker 2: IRA passage too, Like I'm seeing new reports coming out
Speaker 2: that are kind of recycling stuff that people were arguing
Speaker 2: twenty years ago about CO two greening the world and
Speaker 2: how actually carbon emissions are a good thing for us.
Speaker 2: I'm curious what you think about what might possibly put
Speaker 2: an end to this. You know, we've been seeing kind
Speaker 2: of the same talking points and the same strategies from
Speaker 2: these companies for twenty thirty years now, and they don't
Speaker 2: even need to come up with new ones because the
Speaker 2: old ones still works. So having seen all of this
Speaker 2: stuff from these companies, what do you think it would
Speaker 2: take to get them to stop and actually transition.
Speaker 3: One is accountability.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think most people don't know how much
Speaker 4: climate disinformation they've engaged it and there has to be
Speaker 4: some enforcement in the agencies for proof and advertising, so
Speaker 4: there should be requirements that they can't make misrepresentations about
Speaker 4: these issues to their investors, to the American public. There
Speaker 4: needs to be far more public awareness and public campaigns
Speaker 4: to say, Okay, if you're going to claim that you're
Speaker 4: going to meet the parisit courts, where is this, where
Speaker 4: is the investment? And then that can be investor activists driven,
Speaker 4: but ultimately it's going to take congressional standards and the
Speaker 4: enforcement of that by agencies as well as investor activism.
Speaker 2: One of the arguments that the oil companies are making
Speaker 2: in court is a very nuanced free speech argument that
Speaker 2: they say, in service of gaining particular policies is petitioning
Speaker 2: speech and therefore protected by the First Amendment. And I'm
Speaker 2: curious what you think of that argument.
Speaker 4: That's if Exeon wants to say that we should have
Speaker 4: less methane regulation, that's their first Amendment right. But what
Speaker 4: is not their first Amendment right, in my view, is
Speaker 4: to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to influence that.
Speaker 4: Now under this current Supreme Court and Citizens United, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: they've misinterpreted the Constitution to allow big money, but I
Speaker 4: don't think big money is speech.
Speaker 3: And the other thing that's not their right is to
Speaker 3: mislead people.
Speaker 4: So even with free speech, you can't have misrepresentation to
Speaker 4: your investors. Under sec reporting, you can't have misrepresentation to
Speaker 4: the American public. And whether they legally are misrepresenting, certainly
Speaker 4: ethically they're misrepresenting.
Speaker 3: And that's what a lot of the documents are showing.
Speaker 1: That's it for this time and for this year. Big
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