For the first time ever, top executives in the oil industry were grilled by federal lawmakers for their alleged role in misleading the public for decades on climate change and stalling efforts to reduce the use of their products, a major contributor to global warming.

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform questioned on Thursday top leaders at ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell Oil, as well as two trade organizations they fund, over what Democratic lawmakers said was the petroleum industry’s role in spreading disinformation about the science of climate change — and whether the companies’ current commitments to clean up their acts were enough to forestall dangerous global warming.

Becoming heated at moments, Democrats drew stark parallels between their climate hearing and an infamous 1994 inquiry at which tobacco executives testified under oath that they believed nicotine was not addictive.

“You can either come clean, admit your misrepresentations and ongoing inconsistencies and stop supporting climate disinformation, or you can sit there in front of the American public, and lie under oath,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Environment.

Big Tobacco was eventually to forced to settle with state prosecutors and curtail cigarette marketing. At the moment, it is unclear if the Big Oil hearing yielded any bombshell revelations that may move U.S. climate policy.

Democrats are intent on getting more information. At the end of the hearing, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chair of the committee, let the oil executives know she intended to subpoena the companies for documents regarding their communications about climate change.

“Please note that I do not take this step lightly,” she said.

Still, the historic six-hour hearing comes as President Biden is set to fly to Scotland to attend a major international climate conference and negotiate bigger cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from China and other top polluters. His administration is also in the midst of trying to secure a deal to boost funding for alternative forms of energy by $555 billion as part of a signature $1.75 trillion bill.

“This is a watershed moment in not only efforts to hold fossil fuel interests accountable for the decades of deception, but also more broadly in the climate battle itself,” said Geoffrey Supran, a research fellow at Harvard University who studies the history of climate politics.
Appearing by video conference rather than in person, the oil executives acknowledged the burning of their products is contributing to the rise in global temperatures — a position many petroleum firms once refused to take. Yet the industry’s top brass denied its involvement in a campaign to deliberately mislead the public on climate change.

“While our views on climate change have developed over time, any suggestion that Chevron is engaged in an effort to spread disinformation and mislead the public on these complex issues is simply wrong,” Chevron CEO Michael Wirth told lawmakers.

No company sustained more intense questioning than the nation’s biggest oil company, Exxon.

Maloney said there was a “clear conflict” between what Exxon’s old executives said about climate change and what the company’s own researchers were privately telling the company leaders.

She grilled Exxon CEO Darren Woods about statements sowing doubt about climate change from one of Woods’s predecessors, Lee Raymond, including a mid-1990s speech in which Raymond said “the case for so-called global warming is far from airtight.”

Those public statements came even as Exxon’s scientists were studying the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and warning the company’s leaders of the “generally negative consequences” of rising sea levels.

“Do you agree, there is an inconsistency?” Maloney asked.

“No, I do not agree there was an inconsistency,” Woods responded, noting those statements were decades old and the company’s position has evolved along with the consensus in the scientific community.

“I think the quotes speak for themselves,” Maloney said in response.

The oil industry’s main lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, also came under scrutiny.

Khanna called on oil companies to quit their membership in API over its opposition to climate policies such as electric vehicle subsidies. French oil giant Total announced in January that it was leaving the lobbying group, saying it could not reconcile differences with the powerful trade association over electric vehicle subsidies and fees on methane emissions.

“Would any of you take the opportunity and look at API and say, ‘stop it’?” Khanna asked executives from BP, Shell, Exxon and Chevron.