Leaders from the four largest Western oil companies answered questions from a House Committee on Thursday.

The hearing discussed the role of corporations in combating climate change.

The democrats in the committee had scheduled the event: They accuse the oil companies of having used disinformation campaigns to prevent early, decisive action against climate change and deliberately ignoring their own scientific findings.

In addition, they have recently expressed support for measures against climate change, but secretly blocked solutions and invested in oil production.

Winand von Petersdorff-Campen

Business correspondent in Washington.

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The older accusation got new nourishment from a video secretly recorded by Greenpeace and published in July showing the then Exxonmobil chief lobbyist Keith McCoy. He speaks openly about how he works with "shadow groups" against the scientific findings and only supports a CO2 tax in the knowledge that it is not enforceable. He is working to weaken President Joe Biden's climate protection policy.

Exxon broke up with McCoy in the fall and contradicted his arguments.

At the hearing on Thursday, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods was confronted with statements from former CEO Lee Raymond, who in 2001 presented the question of the human contribution to climate change as unsolved by science.

Various Exxon scientists, on the other hand, had previously highlighted the dangers of climate change and the contribution of fossil fuels, according to the Democratic MP Carolyn B. Maloney, and viewed them as a scientific consensus as early as the 1980s.

Woods replied at the hearing that Raymond's statements corresponded to the state of the art that he assumed was the state of the art.

Woods spoke of reducing emissions

At the beginning of the hearing, Maloney, as committee chairman, warned managers not to lie. A few years ago, seven tobacco company executives on the committee claimed against their better judgment that nicotine was not addictive. That was bad for them. The representatives of the corporations - in addition to Woods, David Lawler (CEO BP America), Michael Wirth (CEO Chevron) and Gretchen Watkins (President Shell Oil America) - made it clear, however, that they do not doubt the human contribution to climate change and are pursuing ambitious reduction goals.              

The Democrat Ro Khanna tried to work out another discrepancy between speeches and actions of industry. While the European companies Shell and BP advocated the expansion of the infrastructure for electric cars, the American Petroleum Institute API, which they co-financed, would invest millions in campaigns against it. The API is also lobbying against Biden's proposed methane gas fee, which Shell supports, Khanna reported.

Khanna reproached the American corporations ExxonMobil and Chevron, unlike their European competitors, not to cut back oil and gas production.

Woods said his company would cut emissions.

Chevron CEO Michael Wirth said the demand for oil and gas will increase in the next few years.

Chevron adjusts to this while reducing emissions at the same time.

Republicans on the committee questioned the legitimacy of the hearing and praised the oil industry for its contribution to reducing emissions on historic levels.

Because of the increased use of gas and renewable energies in electricity production, the United States has actually significantly reduced its greenhouse gas emissions.

The Republicans had invited a welder named Neil Crabtree, who pretended to have lost his job after Biden decided to pull out of the Keystone pipeline.

Crabtree attributed the sharp rise in prices for gasoline and heating energy to the fact that the construction of the necessary pipelines was prevented.

Republicans also recalled that Democratic politicians had asked OPEC to increase oil production while it was being hampered in the US.

That's crazy, said MP Jim Jordan.