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Executives from six main oil and fuel corporations testified throughout a congressional listening to this week as gasoline costs neared report highs and a calamitous report on the urgency of combating local weather change was launched.
The listening to earlier than a Home Committee on Vitality and Commerce subcommittee centered on whether or not the trade is prioritizing income over elevated home manufacturing, and lawmakers from each events known as on trade executives to get to work and increase output so as to present reduction on the pump. It was additionally, nonetheless, a uncommon alternative for lawmakers to press main oil executives on what they’re doing to fight local weather change, which their trade has performed an outsized function in driving.
This week, a brand new United Nations report warned that international greenhouse fuel emissions should peak no later than three years from now, then be slashed almost in half by 2030 so as to stave off the worst results of local weather change.
However that’s nothing to fret about, in accordance with Republicans. As a substitute, two GOP members of the oversight and investigation subcommittee urged trade leaders to cease catering to environmentalists and as a substitute double down on the very vitality sources which have put the world on a path towards catastrophic and irreversible climatic change.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) famous through the listening to that international vitality demand is forecast to extend 50% by 2050 and declared that “renewables won’t ever meet that demand — by no means.” He then rattled off a listing of metals and different sources that must be mined and secured to transition from fossil fuels to renewables. And he touted the greenhouse fuel emission reductions that would end result if all coal-generated energy had been changed with pure fuel.
“That’s the argument try to be making as a substitute of behaving like you’ve got Stockholm syndrome, like your civility to the unconventional environmentalists in Congress and this administration will at some point get them to love you,” Crenshaw informed the oil trade executives. “They are going to by no means such as you.”
“Please rise up to your work, your workers and your shoppers,” he added. “Communicate the reality. Don’t pander to what they need on the left, as a result of Individuals want you.”
Amongst different issues, Crenshaw’s feedback ignore the struggling and devastation that local weather change-fueled warmth waves, drought and excessive climate are already inflicting across the globe — and that can develop worse with each extra diploma of warming.
Among the many six executives who obtained Crenshaw’s pep discuss had been Chevron CEO Michael Wirth and ExxonMobil CEO Darren W. Woods. Chevron and ExxonMobil are each among the many prime 10 contributors to Crenshaw, donating $29,774 and $23,153, respectively. Crenshaw has obtained a complete of $693,435 in marketing campaign donations from the oil and fuel trade over his profession, in accordance with information compiled by the Middle for Responsive Politics.
Rep. Invoice Johnson (R-Ohio), one other enormous beneficiary of trade marketing campaign money, gave an equally obsequious lecture, telling the executives they deserve thanks and reward for what they do “to maintain the lights on” and “fairly actually to gasoline trendy life as we all know it in America.”
“However there’s an issue,” Johnson mentioned. “A lot of you’ve got large promoting budgets. Why gained’t you inform that story? I’m not going to call names, however we’ve all seen the TV commercials from Huge Oil, crammed with photo voltaic panels, inexperienced local weather messaging about the way you’re diversifying your portfolio and the way you’re embracing liberal, progressive values.”
“What’s been your return on funding with that effort?” Johnson continued. “You’ve taken a shellacking at this time from the Democrats. Do they appear impressed by your efforts to indicate your allegiance to their anti-fossil gasoline agenda?”
Johnson fired off a sequence of yes-or-no questions on whether or not the executives are happy with the merchandise and jobs they produce. After getting a sequence of sure solutions, he known as on the executives to make use of his line of questioning as a template for telling their story.
He accused the trade of “chasing radical inexperienced progressive values.”
The oil and fuel sector has given Johnson $725,609 over his political profession, greater than some other trade.
Earlier within the listening to, executives from BP and Shell touted their corporations’ investments in renewable vitality, together with wind and photo voltaic, in addition to the electrification of the automotive trade. However these investments pale compared to the sum of money the trade continues to funnel towards new fossil gasoline manufacturing and initiatives.
Republican lawmakers’ rhetoric about fossil fuels being superior to renewables — cheaper and extra dependable — not solely highlights the division in Washington over future vitality coverage, it additionally underscores one of many important takeaways from the brand new U.N. report: that the most important impediment to aggressive local weather motion is just not expertise or the affordability of renewables; it’s political forces.
Renewable vitality is quickly getting cheaper and extra aggressive. From 2010 to 2019, the worth of photo voltaic vitality and lithium-ion batteries fell 85%, whereas wind dropped 55%, in accordance with the report.
However politicians and conservative suppose tanks repeatedly assault inexperienced vitality as not but prepared for prime time. A serious instance of right-wing local weather misinformation performed out final winter, when a robust winter storm triggered blackouts throughout Texas. Crenshaw and Johnson joined a refrain of Republicans who initially blamed the grid outages on the failure of wind generators and photo voltaic panels.
“Backside line: renewables don’t work effectively in excessive climate. By no means will,” Crenshaw tweeted on the time. “Can we ever depend on renewables to energy the grid throughout excessive climate? No, you want fuel or nuclear.”
The truth is, the major trigger of the lethal blackouts wasn’t that renewables didn’t work within the excessive winter climate. It was that devices froze at coal, nuclear and pure fuel energy vegetation.
“Let me remind you, individuals die from lack of vitality — and in giant numbers,” Crenshaw mentioned at Wednesday’s listening to. “I hope all that inexperienced compassion I all the time hear about has some solutions for that.”
He voiced no such hope that present fossil gasoline infrastructure would show extra dependable the following time Texas experiences excessive climate.
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