LOOKING AHEAD: A Senate Budget Committee hearing scheduled for next week is prompting questions about a possible revival of the House Democratic probe in the 117th Congress into oil companies and whether they’ve evaded accountability for climate change.
The details: On next Wednesday, May 1, the Senate Budget Committee is hosting a hearing on climate change and fossil fuel companies– an issue that Chairman Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has continuously highlighted while sitting at the top perch of the committee. But a special witness, House Oversight Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, is set to appear for testimony, making it more than likely the House Oversight probe into large oil companies for allegedly misleading the public on their contributions to global warming will come up.
“The fossil fuel industry has lied about their role in climate change for far too long,” the Senate Budget Committee posted on X. “@SenWhitehouse calls a hearing to hold Big Oil companies and their enablers accountable for their deception.”
Some background: In 2021, the House Oversight Committee began probing into oil companies, questioning players like Exxon Mobil, Chevron Corporation, BP America, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Led by former House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and Environmental Subcommittee Chairman Ro Khanna, the investigation resulted in the panel acquiring more than a million pages of emails and documents from the companies via subpoena – materials that showed oil majors had depicted themselves as committed to reducing emissions while simultaneously undermining those efforts by investing billions into new oil and gas projects, according to a memo from the committee.
A spokesperson for Exxon pushed back against the report, stating the committee’s release had cherry-picked internal documents to make the industry look bad.
So, what happened? The probe came to halt after House Republicans took control of the House in 2023. While there were calls from Democratic lawmakers to continue the probe in the Democratic-led Senate, the Washington Post reported in March of last year that the investigation’s documents remain in limbo. Whitehouse told the publication that he lacked access to the documents because “it obviously was not approved for dissemination under Chair Maloney.”
But: It’s unclear whether or not the documents will be sent over to the Senate to continue the high-stakes probe. But, at the very least, expect Whitehouse to continue to rail against oil companies – just last month, the Rhode Island Democrat signed a letter calling for the Federal Trade Commission to look into the recent pattern of oil companies consolidating for potential violations of antitrust laws.
Spokespeople for both Raskin and Whitehouse did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The witnesses: Along with Raskin, the other witnesses will include Geoffrey Supran, the director of the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science, and Sharon EuBanks, the former director of the tobacco litigation team at the Department of Justice.
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NYC CONGESTION TAX TO BEGIN JUNE 30: The New York City congestion tax, touted as the first such measure in the U.S., will kick in June 30, authorities announced today, according to NBC New York.
Car drivers will have to pay an additional $15 to enter lower Manhattan, and truckers will be charged more.
The plan, which still faces legal challenges from New Jersey, is meant to alleviate congestion downtown by taking some cars off the road, and was also justified in part as reducing emissions. It’s favored by urbanists and environmentalists.
GRANHOLM TOURS NEW MEXICO SOLAR PLANT: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is in New Mexico today to tour new clean energy projects boosted by the Inflation Reduction Act.
The state’s two Democratic senators, Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, were slated to join her at the Array Technologies solar manufacturing facility in Albuquerque. Array said that the $50 million-plus investment in the site was made possible by the IRA production tax credit.
The group will then have a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Arcosa Towers, a wind tower construction plant in Belen. Arcosa credited the IRA for increasing demand for its products when President Joe Biden visited the site last year.
KEY SOLAR PANEL MATERIAL SOON TO BE SHIPPED FROM WASHINGTON FACTORY: A factory in Washington state will soon start making shipments of polysilicon, a critical component in solar panels that has for years been provided almost exclusively by China, the New York Times reports.
The REC Silicon factory in Moses Lake was reopened in December, after being closed since 2018, in a partnership to deliver materials to Hanwha Qcells for use in its Georgia factory – a facility the Biden administration has touted. REC Silicon executives told the Times they reopened the factory to take advantage of incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act.
ENERGY PRICES CONTRIBUTED TO HOT INFLATION IN MARCH: Prices for energy goods and services rose 1.2% in March, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported this morning in an update to the personal consumption expenditures price index.
The increase in energy prices helped lift headline inflation to 2.7% on the year – which was higher than expected and will be a headache for Biden and the Federal Reserve.
Energy prices are now up 2.7% on the year. It’s the first time that year-over-year energy prices have been up since early last year.
EXXON MOBIL AND CHEVRON DISAPPOINT: Share prices for oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron took a hit this morning as both reported disappointing results, especially thanks to lower natural gas prices and refining margins, marking a step down from earlier record results.
Exxon reported first-quarter earnings of $8.2 billion, down 28% compared to the same period a year ago, the Wall Street Journal reports. Chevron reported earnings of $5.5 billion, down 16%.
One bright spot for Exxon was positive results from its Guyana development – oil growth was up 35%. “We continue to bring projects in more quickly and under budget so we’ve just had great execution in Guyana,” Chief Financial Officer Kathy Mikells told Bloomberg.
The two companies are locked in a legal battle over the stake in the development owned by Hess, which Chevron has agreed to take over in a $53 billion transaction. Exxon claims it has the rights to Hess’s stake. Mikells told the publication that arbitration in the matter is still in the early days.
RUNDOWN
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