Senate Budget Committee Fossil Fuel Misinformation Hearing Outlines Decades of Lies from Big Oil

May 1, 2024

Senate Budget Committee Fossil Fuel Misinformation Hearing Outlines Decades of Lies from Big Oil

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget today will hold a hearing detailing a decades-long misinformation campaign undertaken by the fossil fuel industry intended to downplay the danger of climate change, spread confusing and misleading narratives, and lobby against climate action. At the hearing, U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin will present a joint staff report Denial, Disinformation and Doublespeak: Big Oil's Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change. David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Climate Program, issued the following statement:

"The monumental acts of deception undertaken by fossil fuel companies have hampered every effort undertaken to correct the lethal impacts of climate change. While Big Oil has made trillions of dollars by blocking market and policy responses that would have mitigated the effects of their dangerous fossil fuel products, their deception has sown global chaos, resulting in death and destruction that endangers communities around the world. It's criminal conduct, and our leaders and legal system should treat it as such."

Further Reading: April 2024: Prosecutors Should Consider Homicide Charges Against Big Oil for Deaths Caused by Climate Change, New Paper Argues

# # #