Congressmembers Call for Investigation of Shell over Climate Change

LA TIMES
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-congress-shell-climate-change-20160218-story.html

Democracy Now website:
Meanwhile, a group of congressmembers are calling for an investigation of Shell Oil over whether the oil giant lied to the public about climate change even while preparing its own operations for rising sea levels. This week, California Congressmember Ted Lieu, Vermont Congressmember Peter Welch and Pennsylvania Congressmember Matt Cartwright sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch saying that a growing body of evidence suggests there was "a conspiracy between Shell, ExxonMobil and potentially other companies in the fossil fuel industry." The Los Angeles Times has reported that in 1989 Shell Oil announced it was redesigning its natural gas platform in the North Sea in the Atlantic in order to deal with rising sea levels caused by global warming. Yet, despite this admission, Shell continued funding groups denying the existence of climate change for decades. Oil giant ExxonMobil is already facing a criminal investigation over similar charges that it misled investors and lied to the public about the risks of climate change.

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/19/headlines/congress_members_call_for_investigation_of_shell_over_climate_change



Fuelfix website:
Political pressure continues to build around investigating oil companies’ conflicting positions on climate change.

Earlier this week three Democratic Congressmen, Rep. Ted Lieu, of California, Rep. Matt Cartwright, of Pennsylvania, and Rep. Peter Welch, of Vermont, sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, calling for an investigation into Shell, the European oil giant which maintains its U.S. headquarters in Houston.

The congressmen cited recent stories by The Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News about how in 1989 Shell announced it was redesigning an oil platform in the North Sea to account for rising sea levels and worsening storms connected to climate change.

According to the letter, Shell was a member in Global Climate Initiative, a group founded by Exxon that in 1995 raised questions around scientific research that showed the earth was warming.

“The apparent tactics employed by Shell and Exxon are reminiscent of the actions employed by big tobacco companies to deceive the American people about the known risks of tobacco,” the letter read.

Shell did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the company told the Los Angeles Times, “Shell’s public position on climate change and the challenge CO2 poses is well known and can be documented for over a decade.”

The congressmen join a growing chorus of Democrats, including the likes of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Al Gore, calling for an investigation into whether oil companies’ own research and correspondence on climate change differed from their public stance during the 1990s, when climate change science came under attack.

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http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/02/19/congressmen-call-for-investigation-into-shell-on-climate-change/