Reposted with permission from Energy In Depth – a research, education and public outreach campaign of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA).
Mandi Risko
The Senate Budget Committee took the House Democrats’ political-theatre-esque investigation into energy companies and turned it into a complete political dud. At a hearing Wednesday intended to build off of the House Oversight Committee’s (HCOR) failed investigation into energy companies back in 2022, Democratic politicians and activist witnesses failed to produce anything of substance to support their decades-long campaign aimed at taking down the American energy industry.
The hearing comes just a day after the Senate Budget Committee and the House Oversight Democrats issued a joint report and a trove of documents alleging that oil majors deceived the public about climate change. And, even though Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) stated the documents “exposed” the industry, there was little mention of their contents – because they, like the numerous other documents analyzed by the HOC, are a complete nothingburger.
Putting a finer point on it, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told E&E News that “the hearing might be the end of the line for the investigation for now.”
Whitehouse’s Fishing Expedition Bound to Upset Other Democrats
While some politicians have hijacked the Senate Budget Committee far beyond its purview to focus almost exclusively on climate change, other Democrats are surely rolling their eyes at today’s political performance. In the wake of the Biden administration’s LNG pause, numerous Democrats have called out the importance of natural gas and rebuked their own party for turning against a needed economic and energy security powerhouse. Most recently, Jennifer Granholm thanked the industry for its extraordinary work supplying much-needed clean energy to the American people:
“You have helped us meet the moment when our energy and national security have needed it most [and] we will be counting on you again.”
Much like the House investigation, Sen. Whitehouse’s hearing – while also totally snooze worthy – was out of step and out of sync with the American people. Instead, it was used primarily for “political theatre,” a point Ranking Member Senator Chuck Grassley took issue with, arguing that committee has broken historic precedent in the production of its report and release of documents:
“The Majority could have been transparent with the Minority many months ago, as is normal course of business. The Majority chose not to do so. This unfortunate series of non-transparent events have undone years of investigative precedent.” (emphasis added)
Notably, this isn’t Sen. Whitehouse’s first swing at reviving the House’s flawed investigation into energy companies. Last June, he held a hearing featuring anti-industry activists Naomi Oreskes and Christine Arena who again failed to provide any momentum for this flailing campaign. This time, Sen. Whitehouse invited Oreskes’ former colleague Geoffrey Supran, former Department of Justice (DOJ) Attorney and La Jolla attendee Sharon Eubanks, along with Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
Supran, the “Academic,” Didn’t Even Do His Homework
Geoffrey Supran, a self-described “disinformation scientist” funded by the Rockefellers who was intimately involved in the House Oversight Committee’s investigation, didn’t even do his homework. When asked by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) about the internal industry documents that were intended to be the topic of discussion at the hearing, he admitted:
“I have yet to review the documents themselves, they were only just released. I have reviewed the reports that accompany them, so forgive me for having only a superficial understanding of them.” (emphasis added)
Comically, it was Supran and Oreskes who bragged about their document reading abilities back in 2017 when they embarked on their Climate Change Communications study aimed at American energy companies.
In fact, experts such as Roger Pielke Jr., have pointed out that Supran has a record of identifying a conclusion with no data only to then morph his evidence in a fashion that makes oil and gas companies look bad – all in the name of taking down energy companies.
Underlying this bias, a noteworthy exchange occurred when Supran became noticeably uncomfortable when Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) exposed him for endorsing fringe views on X. Sen. Kennedy pointed out that Supran couldn’t possibly be an unbiased witness when he endorses the dishonest and disruptive tactics used by activist group Climate Defiance:
The Link Between “Big Tobacco” and “Big Oil” Was Completely Debunked
Throughout the hearing, Democrats had little success in their attempts to create a link between the Big Tobacco lawsuits in the 1990s and the cases against energy companies. Even Sharon Eubanks, former director for the tobacco litigation Team at DOJ, didn’t provide this much sought after link. Instead, Eubanks opined about the good ol’ days and closed out the hearing by stating:
“There was more than one statute [supporting the DOJ’s lawsuit against Big Tobacco], that we went forward with. RICO was one, then we had the Medicare Reimbursement Act and the Medicare Secondary Pay and Provisions of the Social Security Act of 1930-something.”
While an interesting history lesson, Eubanks’ testimony didn’t advance the fringe narrative that energy lawsuits and Big Tobacco lawsuits are somehow analogous.
Ariel Cohen, a witness invited by the Senate Republicans, gave the clearest answer:
“The fundamental difference between tobacco and the fossil fuel industry is the fossil fuel industry brings a tangible economic good to the economy. Without it, we cannot have our transportation, or deliveries, our military…so I hope nobody in their right mind is advocating immediate cessation of fossil fuels.” (emphasis added)
Even James Hansen, a former Exxon employee and NASA scientist that supports a fossil fuel phase out has acknowledged that tobacco and hydrocarbons are entirely different products with drastically different values to society:
“Let’s be clear: the frequent comparison of the fossil fuel and tobacco industries is nonsense. Fossil fuels are a valuable energy source that has done yeomen service for humankind.”
Bottom line: Anti-industry advocates have tried for more than a decade to take down the American energy industry with no success and the Senate Budget Committee hearing was no different. After yet another allegedly “groundbreaking” document release, nothing new came to light. While politicians entertain these destructive games, American energy companies remain hard at work to ensure families and business have a reliable source of energy to power their homes and companies.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Yet another repeat of the La Jolla/Sher Edling playbook. SSDD.
We can survive without cigarettes, on the other hand, it’s kind of hard to survive without food and shelter and all of the other things that are benefiting to us from hydrocarbon materials and energy.
For those who didn’t see it, or who saved the original link that later went dormant, here’s the Internet Archive to one of the best examinations of the Naomi Oreskes “La Jolla” workshop that I am aware of. The spectacular irony about Oreskes and her former subordinate Geoffrey Supran is how their collective accusation about the ‘fossil fuel industry racketeering to deceive the public‘ is no less than exactly what this Oreskes et al. mob is doing right now.
“RICO-teering: How climate activists ‘knew’ they were going to pin the blame on Exxon“
If anyone should be held accountable for misleading and putting the country at risk it is the CAGW crowd. They are evil.
I wouldn’t want to say all climate alarmists are evil, some may just be ignorant, but their delusional thinking (evil, or ignorant, both are delusional) is a danger to society and our freedoms, no matter what their motives are.
Willful ignorance is not very different from evil.
Wasn’t for a lack of trying on my part (with a bit of help from Marc Morano’s retweet that sent my alert to a wider audience) to alert the staffers for the GOP members of the hearing, on how Geoffrey Supran is massively vulnerable to tough questions on his core claims about the existence of ‘fossil fuel industry disinformation campaigns.’ Alas, no victory there on prompting those questions, where instead the news from the hearing concerns Supran’s egregiously inexcusable retweeting of anti-Semitic viewpoints, revealed from Senator Kennedy’s questioning. There is an acutely ironic angle to that particular revelation, though: Supran said at one time that he essentially owes his career to his former boss, Naomi Oreskes . . . . . . . who is Jewish.
You have to love Senator Kennedy!
Unless you are the one being questioned by him.
Shows what happens when a soyboy takes on security at a MAGA gathering.
Since they were mentioned, some back story-
“The Rockefellers and their allies have, for at least fifty years, been carefully following a plan to use their economic power to gain political control of first America, and then the rest of the world. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes, I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.” Congressman Larry P. McDonald, November 1975, from the introduction to a book titled The Rockefeller File.
“For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as internationalists and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” -David Rockefeller
“I am grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. ” David Rockefeller
“We are grateful. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a World Government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries” David Rockefeller to Trilateral Commission in 1991
That’s seriously scary!
Yes, it is.
And there are a lot more radical leftwing billionaires today, than there were back 50 or 100 years ago.
Some of those radical leftwing billioniares that financed the pro-terrorist demonstrations in some American universities should be forced to pay for the cleanups. RICo charges might also be appropriate. I believe that includes the Rockefellers. Also George Soros, and probably a number of other billionaires.
Follow the money! Nail the leftwing billionaires!
We need a majority Republican Congress. We need to follow the money of the Deep State/Swamp and that will be the only way to do it. Of course, we need Trump as president, so the DOJ and the Executive Branch can be actively involved. Trump is the only guy who we can be sure is not a member of the Deep State Elites. And the only guy that can get the job done for Making America/World Great Again.
Trump is correct: The most important election in American history is coming up on November 5, 2024. It’s “Make or Break” time.
Trump is also correct when he says it isn’t the Right that people need to worry about, they are not out in the streets raising hell, it is the radical Left that people need to worry about.
Vote the Radical Left out of office, and replace them with Republicans/Conservatives. Then this country can get moving again and get back to sanity.
This describes Big Pharma to a tee-
“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.” —J. Edgar Hoover, The Elks Magazine, 1956
He is now joined by the likes of Bloomberg, Gates, Soros, Zuckerberg, Bezos and others as part of the WEF. These are in fact very dangerous times and these egotistical fools are playing into the hands of our enemies
These people are the enemy
Some dare call it conspiracy. I recall a guy out of Appleton, Wisconsin pointing this out years ago, saying they would be “running naked through the streets” when it was no longer necessary to keep it secret. Seems he was correct.
From the article: “The hearing comes just a day after the Senate Budget Committee and the House Oversight Democrats issued a joint report and a trove of documents alleging that oil majors deceived the public about climate change.”
This is just a blatant lie.
Scientists of all kinds studied the Earth’s atmosphere, including those scientists at oil companies. Some of these scientists speculated on the effects of CO2 on the atmosphere. This speculation went on in public for decades, so nothing about the science of CO2 and its interaction with the Earth’s atmosphere was hidden from anyone who took the time to look at the issue. It was all public knowledge.
The oil companies cannot hide something that is public knowedge. There has been speculation about the warming effects of CO2 on the atmosphere for decades. The oil company speculations were similar to the speculations on the part of independent scientists.
And to this day, the speculation is just that: speculation. There is no evidence showing that CO2 is harmful in any way to the Earth’s atmosphere. That’s the bottom line. Speculation is not evidence of anything.
Claiming the oil companies lied about CO2 is a lie.
Have we finally turned the corner or is the corner at least finally in sight?
No, because the vast majority of the public is blissfully unaware of any of this stuff. They just know what the MSM pukes at them.
I’ll see your Sen. Whitehouse and raise you Sen. Kennedy.
We are at the precipice. That the one created by UN Sec.Gen. about the climate, but a more serious one – human civilization and survival of 8 billion people.
The problem is, they don’t want 8 billion people to survive.
They want a more controllable number.
At the Senate hearing the Democrats kept trying to link the irrelevant prosecution of the tobacco industry with an attempt to prosecute oil companies.
Left unsaid is that the Government has no problem with people smoking, they just wanted a slice of the profits. Cigarettes are just as available today as ever, only more expensive to the detriment of poor people.
This political charade continues today with Big Oil as the target.