(Adds analysis by committee on scant oil company lobbying for
Paris Agreement, details from Republican witness)
By Valerie Volcovici and Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, Oct 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress on Thursday
opened a year's worth of investigations into whether Big Oil
deceived Americans about its role in climate change, with
Democratic lawmakers grilling the chiefs of four oil companies
and two lobby groups.
Environmental groups and their congressional allies hope the
hearing evokes the Big Tobacco hearings of the 1990s, which
began a shift in public opinion about that industry. Energy
industry representatives plan to focus on their current support
of climate action.
"We will demand accountability from Big Oil for their role
in fueling the climate crisis and deceiving the public, and we
will urge the industry to finally take meaningful action to rein
in emissions from fossil fuels before it is too late," Carolyn
Maloney, the chairwoman of the House oversight committee holding
the hearing said.
Representative Ro Khanna, who is helping to lead the
hearings, said if lawmakers can show the oil companies lied, "I
think it will be a Big Tobacco moment for Big Oil."
It was the first time that executives of the top oil majors
- ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, BP America and Chevron - and the heads
of the American Petroleum Institute and Chamber of Commerce
answered questions about climate change in Congress under oath.
Representative James Comer, top Republican on the committee,
did not mention climate change in his opening remarks and said
the panel should be addressing inflation and high energy prices
he linked to policies of President Joe Biden's administration.
"The purpose of this hearing is clear: to deliver partisan
theater for primetime news," Comer said.
The lone Republican witness, Neal Crabtree, a welder who
lost his job after Biden canceled the Keystone XL oil pipeline,
said his main crisis is not climate change but his mortgage and
the food he has to put on his table.
The hearing comes as Biden heads to Scotland for annual U.N.
climate talks and as Congress haggles about climate provisions
in reconciliation and infrastructure legislation. It was delayed
nearly two hours by a last-minute visit by Biden to Capitol Hill
to update lawmakers on the framework of his spending and climate
legislation.
This summer, the United Nations released a report warning
that unless immediate, rapid and large-scale action is taken to
reduce emissions, the average global temperature is likely to
reach or cross the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees F) warming
threshold within 20 years.
LITTLE LOBBYING ON PARIS PACT
The committee criticized the companies' scant support for
the Paris climate agreement. It released an analysis that found
from 2015, when the pact was agreed, to 2021, Exxon reported in
its lobbying disclosures only one instance of lobbying on the
Paris Agreement, and none on any of the 28 bills related to the
pact.
"That means that only 0.06% of Exxon 1,543 total instances
of legislative lobbying since 2015 has been devoted to the Paris
Agreement or related legislation," the analysis said.
Exxon CEO Darren Woods said the company "responded
accordingly" when the "scientific community's understanding of
climate change developed" and maintained that he believes oil
and gas will still be needed to meet growing global energy
demand.
Woods emphasized Exxon's investments in carbon capture, a
technology to capture emissions for burial underground or to
pump them into aging oilfields to squeeze out more crude.
Woods and Mike Wirth, CEO of Chevron, also played up oil and
gas as being essential for operation of hospitals, schools and
offices.
BP America's CEO David Lawler and Shell Oil's CEO Gretchen
Watkins talked about their recognition that climate change was a
problem in the 1990s and about their current efforts to adapt
their business models to add more renewable energy and lower
emissions.
The energy executives, who all testified virtually, also
said that more time is needed for a transition to cleaner
energy.
Suzanne Clark, the president and CEO of the Chamber, pointed
out that Biden's international climate envoy, John Kerry, said
this year that half of the emissions cuts needed to get to net
zero will come from technologies that are not developed yet.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici and Timothy Gardner; Editing by
David Gregorio)