Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Az.) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.) on Monday requested paperwork from 5 public relations companies and the American Petroleum Institute (API) detailing their work for fossil gasoline firms.
Porter and Grijalva wrote to API, FTI Consulting, Story Companions, DDC Advocacy, Blue Promoting and Singer Associates asking for all paperwork pertaining to the companies’ campaigns for oil, fuel and coal firms, courting again to 2013.
Grijalva, the chairman of the Home Pure Sources Committee, cited an undercover video by Greenpeace activists from summer time 2021, through which Exxon lobbyist Keith McCoy stated the power big has used “shadow teams” to solid doubt on the truth of local weather change.
“Because of the unintended truth-telling by the previous ExxonMobil lobbyist, we all know there’s a lot to uncover in regards to the methods fossil gasoline firms unfold disinformation and lies about local weather change,” Grijalva stated in a press release. “If we’re going to take significant motion towards local weather change, we must be armed with information and science, not business propaganda. The American individuals need to know the reality and we intend to do our job to seek out it.”
“Fossil gasoline firms have been mendacity to the general public for many years to cowl up the harm they’re doing to the planet and our long-term financial wellbeing,” added Porter, chair of the committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.
The 2 representatives in February requested comparable paperwork from organizations that award PR companies. In the meantime Porter, in her capability as a member of the Home Oversight Committee, final yr questioned oil executives on their firms’ information of local weather change in a long time previous whilst they publicly promoted denial of it.
Lately, the fossil gasoline business has acknowledged local weather change and publicly expressed a want to contribute to the answer via elevated use of renewable power. Its detractors, nevertheless, have dismissed such efforts as “greenwashing” that doesn’t correctly deal with their position within the local weather disaster.
The Hill has reached out to the companies in query and API for remark.
