Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna was met with silence from the oil business executives when he requested them to inform the American Petroleum Institute and different teams to cease lobbying towards electrical autos and methane rules – two initiatives the oil corporations themselves assist.
“You might do one thing right here,” mentioned Khanna, who chairs the Home Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on the Atmosphere. “You possibly can inform them to knock it off for the sake of the planet. You might finish that lobbying. Would any of you’re taking that chance to have a look at API and say ‘cease it?’”
The committee room fell silent.
“Any of you?” he requested. “Might you commit? Any of you?”
No CEO responded to Khanna’s query.
The Democrat from California additionally requested fossil gas corporations to decide to having an impartial audit to confirm none of their funding was going towards teams spreading local weather denial, and was once more met with silence.
Many oil corporations are members of the American Petroleum Institute, which has been lobbying towards sure initiatives which are a part of President Joe Biden’s financial and local weather agenda framework.
Khanna later requested Shell Oil president Gretchen Watkins to decide to not funding “any group that’s going to interact in local weather disinformation.”
“Chairman Khanna, what I’ll decide to is constant to be an energetic member of the API,” Watkins mentioned.
Chevron Company CEO Michael Wirth mentioned, “We don’t management and will not all the time agree with the positions taken or statements made by business teams and different organizations. We interact in constructive dialogue.”
