The US Congress has invited key board members at four oil companies to testify about the industry’s role in climate change and spreading “disinformation”.
This is expected to turn up the heat on big oil after legislators grilled their CEOs last year.
The US congressional hearing featuring officials from Exxon, Shell, Chevron and BP, which has been scheduled for February 8, is the next phase of the House oversight committee’s ongoing investigation into the role of fossil fuel companies in blocking action on climate change and misrepresenting the industry’s efforts to address it.
The panel had concluded the first of these hearings last October, which featured the CEOs of oil majors, by issuing subpoenas for documents on what company scientists have said about climate change and any funds spent to mislead the public on global warming.
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The committee plans to scrutinize corporate pledges to cut emissions and invest in cleaner sources of energy by turning its focus to board members who were elected to spur change at these companies on climate change.
Chairman of the oversight panel’s environment subcommittee, Ro Khanna was quoted as saying that these are board members who ran on changing these institutions from the inside.
“They will have to choose between their life convictions or fealty to their CEOs,” he said.
Part of the board members who have been selected to testify is Alexander Karsner, a strategist at Google owner Alphabet Inc who won one of three seats for activist hedge fund Engine No 1 to Exxon’s board to address growing investor concerns about global climate change.
The committee also invited Susan Avery, an atmospheric scientist and former president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who was brought on to Exxon’s board in 2017 as a climate expert.
