How Big Oil plans to stay on top

I wouldn't describe our corporate overlords as generally intelligent, in meaningful ways. But they often do display remarkable cunning.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee recently released internal fuel company documents providing an insider’s view of what they say is a multi-year effort by four leading fossil fuel firms to greenwash their public image. The documents show employees and executives discussing climate policies and pledges they knew would do more to protect their business model than secure a meaningful reduction in pollution.

At first glance, the committee’s accompanying report on the climate disinformation is a partisan project and somewhat unsurprising given the fossil fuel industry’s history of misleading the public. However, a closer look reveals that the largest oil and gas companies are leveraging the climate crisis to further entrench their domination of energy markets across the world. The documents raise thorny questions for climate-minded Democrats, who found that industry groups will support liberal climate priorities such as methane regulation if that keeps oil and gas relevant and protects profits in the long run. Oil companies also “resist and block” environmental rules for pollution control they don’t like, as one employee of BP America observed in a 2016 email to executives obtained by the committee. - Truthout