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From Common Dreams
Summary
- Fossil fuel companies have been deceiving the public and investors about the effects of their products on climate change.
- The report reveals that these companies have known about the harms of their products for decades.
- The fossil fuel industry has used deception, disinformation, and lobbying to obstruct climate progress.
- Calls are made for holding these companies accountable in court and for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate.
Two U.S. congressional committees on Tuesday released a report that “provides a rare glimpse into the extensive efforts undertaken by fossil fuel companies to deceive the public and investors about their knowledge of the effects of their products on climate change and to undermine efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.”
The report—titled Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change—was released after nearly three years of investigation by the Democratic staffs of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Senate Budget Committee.
“For decades, the fossil fuel industry has known about the economic and climate harms of its products but has deceived the American public to keep collecting more than $600 billion each year in subsidies while raking in record-breaking profits,” said Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
“As this joint report makes clear, the industry’s outright denial of climate change has evolved into a green-seeming cover for its ongoing covert operation—a campaign of deception, disinformation, and doublespeak waged using dark money, phony front groups, false economics, and relentless exertion of political influence—to block climate progress,” the senator added.
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