Reflecting on this moment with Rep. Raskin

Congressman Jamie Raskin discusses his ongoing commitment to climate accountability, and what we can expect to see from him next.

Emily Sanders is senior reporter for ExxonKnews.

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Illustration by Tess Abbot

In 2019, I attended the first-ever Congressional hearing about the oil and gas industry’s decades-long climate deception, chaired by Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. 

It was an unforgettable day: two former Exxon scientists testified, for the first time, about their cutting-edge research 40 years prior into how burning fossil fuels affected the climate. They confirmed that the company had intentionally sowed doubt and manufactured denial about the threat. In my memory, it was the first window into a future where the biggest perpetrators of the climate crisis could actually be held accountable at a systemic level. A month later, I started ExxonKnews.

Nearly five years after that hearing, congressional investigations into Big Oil have unearthed vast new evidence of how fossil fuel companies’ early climate denialism has evolved into today’s persuasive greenwashing campaigns, and unveiled the industry’s stealthy collaboration with PR firms and academic institutions. Last month, Raskin and Senate Budget Chair Sheldon Whitehouse formally referred their findings to the Department of Justice — calling on the department to “pursue further investigation and take any appropriate legal action” against fossil fuel majors who may have violated federal law. 

This pivotal moment — with oil companies not only facing calls for DOJ action, but also a growing number of lawsuits and increasing resistance from communities across the country — has been met by a range of increasingly aggressive tactics intended to shield the industry from opposition. Big Oil and its allies are pushing bills to criminalize protest and filing lawsuits to silence its adversaries while working to expand First Amendment protections for corporations. Raskin, a former lawyer and First Amendment scholar, helmed a congressional effort to shine a light on and protect against attacks on protestors’ free speech rights before Democrats lost the majority in the House in 2022.

I spoke with Congressman Raskin about the future of those efforts, his ongoing investigations into the oil industry, and why we can’t have climate action without accountability. Our interview, edited for length and clarity, is below.

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You’ve been working on this issue of bringing oil industry disinformation and climate denial to light for quite a while. Why has it been important to you to keep this pressure going? 

My friend Dar Williams has a song she sings in which she says, “sometimes the truth is like a second chance.” I feel like the truth about what happened and why we’re in this situation will help us to find our way out. The oil and gas industry knew that carbon combustion was producing these catastrophic effects on the climate, and they covered it up. Rather than ringing a bell and telling everybody that we need to replace the carbon model, they swept things under the rug. When other scientists began to come out with the facts, they denied it and tried to contradict them and undermine them. They really had dirty hands. 

The oil and gas industry has essentially been dumping its externalities on the climate system — the common property and inheritance of all humanity — and profiting from a very lucrative business model. So they need to be held accountable by whatever mechanisms we have to do that. There needs to be accountability so that we’re making the collective judgments we need to make in order to disengage from the carbon economy. We need to try to climb out of this debacle as quickly as we can.

Can you describe the role you’ve seen the fossil fuel lobby play in Congress, and how DOJ action could help address that?

You saw it in the course of this investigation, where there was a lot of foot dragging, fake compliance, and serious frustration of the committee’s work. The carbon lobby remains one of the most potent political forces on Capitol Hill. The Department of Justice has the power of prosecution and investigation backed up by subpoena power. In the case of tobacco, the Department of Justice investigation was the critical accountability mechanism that changed the landscape. I assume it would be the same thing with the Department of Justice getting involved in climate culpability.

Have you heard back at all from the DOJ about your referral? 

No, we’ve not heard anything yet.

You’ve now opened this new investigation into oil executives’ meetings with Trump and his alleged deal to give them tax breaks and other legislative gifts in exchange for a billion dollars in campaign donations. How is Big Oil’s legacy of climate deception and delay connected to this latest scandal, and what are you hoping to uncover? 

Big Oil has never owned up to its role in creating the climate crisis. And now they’re clearly in league with Donald Trump to try and make things worse. Trump wants to dramatically expand offshore drilling and drilling on national parklands*, and to lift the momentary pause in liquified natural gas permits. Essentially, Trump is promising to hand the keys to the car over to the carbon industry, and in return, all he wants is a billion dollars — which would obviously be a huge boost to his campaign. But it’s a tiny pittance compared to what Big Oil will make off of the Trump administration. 

Someone asked me whether this is a conflict of interest and I said it’s really a convergence of interests. You have the economic interests of Big Carbon to maintain their monopoly over political power in America, and then you have Donald Trump’s determination to take office and restore himself to power at any cost. He’s willing to trade the climate future of humanity for some campaign dough.

*[Note: U.S. oil production reached record levels under the Biden administration, which has approved more new drilling permits than the Trump administration. Still, the oil industry has already begun writing executive orders for Trump to sign that would open federal lands and waters for drilling even further, and reverse Biden policies like a pause on LNG export permits and a fee on methane leaks.] 

I want to get your opinion as a First Amendment scholar: the oil industry has been arguing in court that their climate denial — or as they put it, political speech on the issue of climate change — is First Amendment protected free speech. What do you think about that? 

If this is speech at all, it is not political speech, it is commercial speech, which receives a lot less protection under the First Amendment. The corporations have done everything in their power to limit their own liability for their actions, and they want to make it harder and harder for [communities] to vindicate their rights. The tobacco industry for a long time lied by denying the carcinogenic effects of smoking. They covered up their knowledge of how tobacco use causes lung cancer, emphysema and other diseases. They also asserted that somehow they had a First Amendment right. But there’s no First Amendment right to lie about the scientific or medical effects of your product, much less is there a First Amendment right to conceal the evidence of your coverup. That’s not constitutionally protected.

On that issue of the First Amendment — I’ve been reporting on the fossil fuel industry’s increasing use of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), or lawsuits used by companies to silence their critics. In 2022, you introduced a federal anti-SLAPP bill, which would help prevent these lawsuits from dragging out in states without existing protections. Is that something you’d re-introduce in the next Congress if the Democrats win the majority in the House? 

The anti-SLAPP laws around the country are an effort to protect public interest and community groups against corporate efforts to bury public interest actors who protest corporate crimes. Corporations know that with their deep pockets, they can spend to the heavens to try to bankrupt their adversaries who don’t have huge budgets for legal representation. That’s what the anti-SLAPP legislation is about — it's an effort to give small dollar public interest and consumer groups a way to fast-track litigation brought against them, so they're not bankrupted in the process. We will be fighting for a federal bill, I hope in the friendlier context of Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

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One such lawsuit, filed by Energy Transfer against Greenpeace for its activism during the protests at Standing Rock, is going to trial next month after 7 long years. That case promises to set a major precedent addressing the right to protest and determining the fossil fuel industry’s hold over democracy as it continues to ramp up fossil fuel production that threatens communities and the planet. And as we reported with DeSmog back in January, Energy Transfer is being represented by Gibson Dunn — the same law firm using a First Amendment defense in its attempts to shield Chevron from climate liability lawsuits.

We will, as always, keep you updated on what comes next.