September 16, 2021: Letter to Ms. Suzanne Clark, President and Chief Executive Officer, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

September 16, 2021

Ms. Suzanne Clark

President and Chief Executive Officer

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

1615 H Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20062

Dear Ms. Clark:

We are writing to request information and documents regarding the reported role of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a long-running,industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming, and to request your appearance at a Committee hearing on Thursday, October 28, 2021. We are deeply concerned that the fossil fuel industry has reaped massive profits for decades while contributing to climate change that is devastating American communities, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, and ravaging the natural world. We are also concerned that to protect those profits, the industry has reportedly led a coordinated effort to spread disinformation to mislead the public and prevent crucial action to address climate change.

Just four fossil fuel companies-BP, Shell, Chevron, and ExxonMobil-reported nearly $2 trillion in profits between 1990 and 2019.1 During this same period, the global climate crisis became increasingly dire, and its deadly impact on Americans increased. The world experienced 19 of the warmest years on record between 2000 and 2020.2 In each of the last six years, the United States has faced more than ten weather and climate disasters-including storms, wildfires, and heat waves-costing over $1 billion each. There were 22 reported billion-dollar climate disasters across the country in 2020.3

Public reporting indicates that the Chamber of Commerce and its allies in the fossil fuel industry have worked to prevent serious action on global warming by generating doubt about the documented dangers of fossil fuels and misrepresenting the scale of your efforts to develop

1. Revealed: Big Oil's Profits Since 1990 Total Nearly $2tn, The Guardian (Feb. 12, 2020) (online at www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/12/revealed-big-oil-profits-since-1990-total-nearly-2tn-bp-shell-chevron-exxon).
2. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Global Temperature (online at https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/) (accessed on July 20, 2021).
3. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Billion-DollarWeather and Climate Disasters: Overview (online at www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/) (accessed on July 23, 2021).

Ms. Suzanne Clark

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alternative energy technologies-some of the same tactics the tobacco industry used to resist regulation while selling products that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.4

Fossil Fuel Industry Spread Disinformation About Climate Science for Decades

Fossil fuel companies and the Chamber of Commerce have been aware of the science of climate change for decades. By 1977, an Exxon scientist warned the company's management about the connection between fossil fuel emissions and the "general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels."5 From 1979 to 1983, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and its oil company members, including the companies that are now operating as or owned by Exxon, Shell, and Chevron, participated in a task force that shared climate science research and discussed possible ways to reduce emissions.6

In 1988, Dr. James Hansen, then the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Institute for Space Studies, testified before Congress that "it was 99 percent certain that the warming trend was not a natural variation but was caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide and other artificial gases in the atmosphere" and that the global warming effect was already "starting to cause changes in climate and weather." Dr. Hansen emphasized, "It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here."7

In response to these developments, fossil fuel industry actors reportedly sought to counteract prevailing scientific knowledge. A 1998 memorandum developed with input from representatives of Chevon, ExxonMobil, API, and other industry-funded front groups detailed plans for a coordinated disinformation campaign targeting the media, the public, and policymakers. In discussing actions around climate policy, the memorandum declared, "victory will be achieved when average citizens 'understand' (recognize) uncertainties in climate science"

1. Big Oil Is the New Big Tobacco. Congress Must Use Its Power to Investigate, The Guardian (Jan. 20, 2020) (online at www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/20/big-oil-congress-climate-change); Doubt over Climate Science Is a Product With an Industry Behind It, The Guardian (Mar. 5, 2015) (online at www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2015/mar/05/doubt-over-climate-science-is-a-product-with-an- industry-behind-it);Union of Concerned Scientists, The Climate Deception Dossiers: Internal Fossil Fuel Industry Memos Reveal Decades of Corporate Disinformation (July 2015) (online at www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf).
2. Exxon's Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels' Role in Global Warming Decades Ago, Inside Climate News (Sept. 16, 2015) (online athttps://insideclimatenews.org/news/16092015/exxons-own-research-confirmed- fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming/).
3. Exxon's Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too, Inside Climate News (Dec. 22, 2015) (online athttps://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122015/exxon-mobil-oil-industry-peers-knew-about- climate-change-dangers-1970s-american-petroleum-institute-api-shell-chevron-texaco/).
4. Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate, New York Times (June 24, 1988) (online at www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html).

Ms. Suzanne Clark

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and when "recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the 'conventional wisdom.'"8 The Chamber of Commerce also consistently took a stance of climate skepticism over the decades that followed, framing the science as too uncertain to warrant action and pitting climate policy against economic growth.9

Reports indicate that fossil fuel companies continued their climate "counter movement" by contributing millions of dollars to academic and policy groups to influence third-party promotion of climate misinformation.10 Throughout the 1990s, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell all joined API and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in one such trade group, the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which lobbied the U.S. government in an effort to derail international action to reduce carbon pollution emissions. The GCC's successful campaign led to the United States' leaving the Kyoto climate agreement in 2001. Documents prepared for then-Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky's 2001 meeting with the GCC stated, "POTUS rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you."11

One study found that between 2003 and 2010, 91 think tanks and advocacy organizations that downplayed global warming were heavily funded by ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, DonorsTrust, and other industry groups.12 These organizations held out the appearance of neutrality, while reportedly working to "identify, recruit, and train" scientists to publish research aligned with industry, lobbying public officials to oppose efforts to address climate change, and harassing scientists.13 They pressed journalists to give media coverage to industry-backed researchers, giving the misleading appearance of a division of opinion among climate scientists.14

1. American Petroleum Institute, et al., Global Climate Science Communications Plan 1998 (Dec. 2015) (online at https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Global-Climate-Science-Communications-Plan-1998.pdf). When questioned by the New York Times, "[i]ndustry representatives confirmed that the documents were authentic." Industrial Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty, New York Times (Apr. 26, 1998) (online at www.nytimes.com/1998/04/26/us/industrial-group-plans-to-battle-climate-treaty.html).
2. Id.
3. How the Oil Industry Made Us Doubt Climate Change, BBC News (Sept. 20, 2020) (online at www.bbc.com/news/stories-53640382).
4. Some Like It Hot, Mother Jones (May/June 2005) (online at www.motherjones.com/environment/2005/05/some-it-hot/);Revealed: How Oil Giant Influenced Bush, Guardian (June, 8, 2005) (online at www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jun/08/usnews.climatechange).
5. Robert J. Brulle, Institutionalizing Delay: Foundation Funding and the Creation of U.S. Climate Change Counter-Movement Organizations, Climatic Change (Feb. 2014) (online at www.researchgate.net/publication/263114280_Institutionalizing_Delay_Foundation_Funding_and_the_Creation_of _US_Climate_Change_Counter-Movement_Organizations).
6. Union of Concerned Scientists, The Climate Deception Dossiers: Internal Fossil Fuel Industry Memos Reveal Decades of Corporate Disinformation (June 29, 2015) (online at www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/The-Climate-Deception-Dossiers.pdf).
7. Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change (2011); Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (2017).

Ms. Suzanne Clark

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Fossil fuel industry actors reportedly paid over $1.2 million to Dr. Willie Soon, an aerospace engineer with no climate science training. According to media reports, Dr. Soon described his climate-science-denying papers and testimony before Congress as "deliverables" to his corporate donors.15 Fossil fuel interests amplified his studies in media stories, publications, and talking points.16

Fossil fuel companies and their allies also publicly spread doubt themselves. For example, then-Chief Executive Officer of Exxon Corporation, Lee Raymond, said in 1997, "Currently, the scientific evidence is inconclusive as to whether human activities are having a significant effect on the global climate."17 At a 2014 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Chamber official Karen Harbert claimed misleadingly that global warming "is caused by lots of different things, and you can't say that climate change is only caused by humans."18 In 2017, a senior vice president at the Chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy described climate change in public remarks as based on "religion," not "scientific facts."19

The Disinformation Campaign Continues Today

We are concerned that these strategies of obfuscation and distraction continue today. Reporting indicates that, facing weak market performance and investor pressure, some large fossil fuel companies have taken public stances in support of action on global warming while continuing efforts in private to block meaningful solutions and legislation.20 ExxonMobil and Chevron publicly supported the Paris Agreement, and BP and Shell have made "net-zero"

• 1. Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher, New York Times (Feb. 21, 2015) (online at www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html).
  2. How Big Oil Lost Control of Its Misinformation Machine, Inside Climate News (Dec. 22, 2017) (online athttps://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122017/big-oil-heartland-climate-science-misinformation-campaign-koch- api-trump-infographic/); Researcher Helps Sow Climate-Change Doubt: Industry-Funded Cambridge Astrophysicist Adds to Partisan Divide, Boston Globe (Nov. 5, 2013) (online athttps://bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/11/05/harvard-smithsonian-global-warming-skeptic-helps-feed-strategy- doubt-gridlock-congress/uHssYO1anoWSiLw0v1YcUJ/story.html);Union of Concerned Scientists, Smoke, Mirrors
• Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science (Jan. 2007) (online at www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/exxon_report.pdf).
• 1. Exxon Sowed Doubt About Climate Science for Decades by Stressing Uncertainty, Inside Climate News (Oct. 22, 2015) (online athttps://insideclimatenews.org/news/22102015/Exxon-Sowed-Doubt-about-Climate- Science-for-Decades-by-Stressing-Uncertainty).
  2. Here Is Exactly What the Chamber of Commerce Thinks About Global Warming, the Atlantic (Mar. 13, 2014) (online at www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/here-is-exactly-what-the-chamber-of-commerce- thinks-about-global-warming/447177/).
  3. Energy and Policy Institute, "Hell to Pay" If Trump Targets EPA Climate Science, Says U.S. Chamber Official (Feb. 20, 2017) (online at www.energyandpolicy.org/u-s-chamber-official-hell-pay-trump-targets-epa- climate-science/).
  4. Revealed: ExxonMobil's Lobbying War on Climate Change Legislation, Channel 4 News (June 30, 2021) (online at www.channel4.com/news/revealed-exxonmobils-lobbying-war-on-climate-change-legislation).

Ms. Suzanne Clark

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pledges for their direct emissions.21 At the same time, fossil fuel companies continue to invest overwhelmingly in fossil fuel extraction and to support efforts to extend the life of their investments in fossil fuel, all while lobbying against reforms that would curb global warming.22 In 2018, the fossil fuel industry supported efforts to roll back vehicle emission standards enacted by the Obama Administration.23 More recently, the industry has challenged the transition toward electric vehicles by opposing the installation of vehicle charging stations.24

Between 2015 and 2018, the five largest publicly traded oil and gas companies reportedly spent $1 billion to promote climate disinformation through "branding and lobbying."25 According to court filings by advocacy organizations, Chevron paid for advertising that celebrates the company's investments in renewable energy but spent only 0.2% of its annual capital expenditure budget on lower-carbon energy resources.26 ExxonMobil has publicized its investments in algae biodiesel research, even though most scientists agree that algae biodiesel is not likely commercially viable.27 In the meantime, ExxonMobil has proceeded with investments in oil and gas.28

1. Chevron, Chevron Supports Well-Designed Climate Policy (online at www.chevron.com/sustainability/environment/climate-policy)(accessed Aug. 19, 2021); Energy Factor by ExxonMobil, Reaffirming Our Commitment to the Paris Agreement (Jan. 20, 2021) (online athttps://energyfactor.exxonmobil.com/insights/partners/commitment-paris-agreement/); Shell Sets Emission Ambition of Net Zero by 2050, with Customer Help, Reuters (Apr. 16, 2020) (online at www.reuters.com/article/us-shell- emissions/shell-sets-emission-ambition-of-net-zero-by-2050-with-customer-help-idUSKCN21Y0MW); BP's New CEO Pledges Net Zero Emissions By 2050, CNN (Feb. 12, 2020) (online at www.cnn.com/2020/02/12/business/bp- net-zero/index.html).
2. How the Oil Industry Has Spent Billions to Control the Climate Change Conversation, The Guardian (Jan. 8, 2020) (online at www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/08/oil-companies-climate-crisis-pr-spending); How a Powerful US Lobby Group Helps Big Oil to Block Climate Action, The Guardian (July 19, 2021) (online at www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/19/big-oil-climate-crisis-lobby-group-api).
3. The Oil Industry's Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules, New York Times (Dec. 13, 2018) (online at www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/climate/cafe-emissions-rollback-oil-industry.html); Trump Finalizes Rollback of Obama-era Vehicle Fuel Efficiency Standards, Reuters (Mar. 31, 2020) (online at www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-autos-emissions/trump-finalizes-rollback-of-obama-era-vehicle-fuel-efficiency- standards-idUSKBN21I25S).
4. The Oil Industry vs. the Electric Car, Politico (Sept. 16, 2019) (online at www.politico.com/story/2019/09/16/oil-industry-electric-car-1729429?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202019-09- 16%20Utility%20Dive%20Newsletter%20%5Bissue:23009%5D&utm_term=Utility%20Dive).
5. InfluenceMap, Big Oil's Real Agenda on Climate Change (Mar. 2019) (online athttps://influencemap.org/report/How-Big-Oil-Continues-to-Oppose-the-Paris-Agreement-38212275958aa21196dae3b76220bddc).
6. Fossil Fuel Firms Face New Challenge over "Greenwashing" Ads, Reuters (June 22, 2021) (online at www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fossilfuel-climate-change-adverti/fossil-fuel-firms-face-new-challenge-over- greenwashing-ads-idUSKCN2DZ00B).
7. Exxon's Climate Fix Is Algae. Experts Say It Won't Work, E&E News (Nov. 2, 2020) (online at https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/1063717527).
8. U.S. and European Oil Giants Go Different Ways on Climate Change, New York Times (Sept. 21, 2020) (online at www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/energy-environment/oil-climate-change-us-europe.html).