OVERSIGHT CMTE. DEMOCRAT ADMITS SOON-TO-BE-RELEASED ANTI-OIL AND GAS RESEARCH WON’T HAVE MUCH IN IT, LIKELY WON’T “BREAK THROUGH” WITH PUBLIC
By William Allison
OVERSIGHT CMTE. DEMOCRAT ADMITS SOON-TO-BE-RELEASED ANTI-OIL AND GAS RESEARCH WON’T HAVE MUCH IN IT, LIKELY WON’T “BREAK THROUGH” WITH PUBLIC
DECEMBER 1, 2022 | WILLIAM ALLISON
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Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a top Democrat on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, acknowledged on Thursday that the panel’s year-long investigation into the alleged “disinformation” from the U.S. oil and natural gas industry has turned out to be a massive dud, reporting from E&E News shows.
The Oversight investigation is just one element of a decade-long failed legal campaignagainst the American energy industry that activists planned out at a 2012 conference in La Jolla, Calif. A central focus of the campaign is obtaining internal company documents – through litigation, congressional subpoena, or other means – as a way to link oil companies to tobacco companies and “delegitimize” energy companies as political actors.
The irony is that much of the documents sought by the committee have been reviewed before – in 2019, a New York state judge ruled in favor of Exxon Mobil in the “climate fraud” case brought by the New York Attorney General against the company. Following “four years of investigation and millions of pages of documents produced by the company,” the case that was once deemed to be “the trial of the century” ended in a decisive loss for the climate litigation campaign.
Failing to Meet Expectations
A year ago, when the investigation kicked off, Rep. Khanna touted that the committee’s work would be “explosive” and “historic.” On several occasions, Rep. Khanna compared his “big oil” investigation to the tobacco investigations of the 1990s, and implied that American energy executives could “meet a similar fate” to the tobacco executives who were the subject of a federal investigation for lying under oath.
Instead, now all that Rep. Khanna is promising is a report that will be released “soon” – likely amid the holidays and with Democrats soon to give up the House majority, and he forecasted that there is nothing of interest in his interview with E&E News, only saying, “We’ve wrapped it up” and, “We got all the documents, we got the testimony.”
According to E&E News, “Khanna acknowledged Wednesday that the Big Oil investigation ultimately won’t have that kind of immediate impact” that the tobacco hearings did.
“‘With Big Tobacco they right away broke through on American public sentiment,’ Rep. Khanna said. ‘I don’t think that we have, candidly, done that yet because the task is much harder on climate and the story was told for the first time.
Khanna nonetheless said he expects the Big Oil probe to be a ‘historic contribution.’
“‘I think our work is of equal significance but not as immediate in breaking through the public consciousness,’ he said.” (emphasis added)
Even the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), the activist group that conducted an aggressive PR campaign around the committee’s hearing in 2021 and is banking on the report to bolster the climate lawsuits the group is supporting, admitted the investigation has flopped. E&E News reported that CCI President Richard Wiles “acknowledged earlier efforts carried no ‘bombshells.’”
Furthermore, Khanna was even forced to admit that rising gasoline prices made it more difficult to vilify the industry as E&E News notes:
“But the investigation began to fade from the spotlight when oil prices spiked in early 2022, causing political consternation among Democrats.
“Khanna said the pain consumers were feeling at the pump, partially as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, made for a more difficult environment for the probe.”
Ironically, as the energy crisis was ramping up last year, it was Rep. Khanna at the 2021 hearing that criticized energy company CEOs for producing too much oil and natural gas.
Extensive Coordination with Activist Groups
Beyond the dud of a report, the most revealing part of the E&E News article was Rep. Khanna’s admission that the committee’ true aim was to support an activism campaign against responsible U.S. oil and natural gas development, saying:
“I think it will, for the next 10 years, pave the way for a lot of activism around the country.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering that the committee extensively coordinated with activists throughout the investigation.
Ahead of the 2021 hearing, Rep. Khanna told The Hill that the committee received help from “a lot of people” who worked for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who led the 1994 hearing with tobacco executives.
In February 2022, RealClearPolitics revealed that Rep. Khanna had enlisted the help of former Waxman staffers Phil Schiliro and Phil Barnett, who run the Arabella Advisers-funded group called Co-Equal, a firm that helps “train understaffed congressional offices and committees.”
Schiliro told RealClearPolitics that he had conversations with the committee and that Co-Equal aims to “to help people who want to advance good legislation or effective oversight.”
Activist academics Geoffrey Supran and Robert Brulle also disclosed to the media that they provided assistance to the committee.
Oddly enough, in a September 2022 interview with HEATED, Rep. Khanna denied coordinating with activist groups, despite several admissions and confirmations from himself and those groups, saying:
“There were a couple articles planted about us using outside resources for hearings, which we didn’t.”
Bottom Line: After promising “shocking” evidence, it seems Rep. Khanna is trying to quietly release his long-awaited report during a news-dump holiday season while House Democrats prepare to exit the majority. This is a far cry from the decade of activism that energy opponents were hoping for.