Jeff Merkley & Jamie Raskin Discuss Fossil Industry Profits Being Pumped Into Political Campaigns

thank you very much Senator Merkley uh thank you very much Mr chairman and first all uh speak to the issue of forest fires because we really have seen that the longer drier hotter Summers that occur in my home state of Oregon are producing a lot more fires a lot more destructive fires we've seen that happen in Canada we've seen it happen in Alaska we've seen it happen in Australia so we really have a feedback loop there that I wanted to draw attention to where climate change is driving more fires and fires are producing more carbon it's not a helpful feedback loop but it's also that the current fires are not the same as the natural fires before we put so much carbon in the air to change the climate to produce these long hot uh Summers either they also produce more lightning strikes which means more fires are are lit in that in that fashion which so if we want less forest fires we we better uh curb the carbon contribution I wanted to uh turn to uh any information that you'd like to share about the feedback loop a different feedback loop in which the profits from the fossil industry are pumped back into Political campaigns not just publicity and misinformation campaigns but actually into Political campaigns to essentially uh use democracy to elect champions for the fossil industry to help continue to manifest the misinformation disinformation and opposition to take taking on this very serious challenge but thank you Senator Merkley just on the negative feedback loop you're absolutely right if you look at the last 10 years of temperature um I believe that nine of the 10 are the hottest recorded years in human history with each one basically being hotter than the last one so it's very clear that as the Earth gets warmer for example with respect to forest fires we get more forest fires production of more um greenhouse gas emissions and then greater climate change and so we are in a negative feedback loop there very much um but it it also does apply um in the political sphere as you're suggesting the tremendous uh profits that are made by uh big oil and big gas have been um rechannel into the political system and some of it is through uh academic studies as we discussed hundreds of millions of dollars went uh in that direction some of it goes through just general public relations and propaganda efforts and some of it goes directly into the political system through campaign contributions and campaign expenditures and I think uh your chairman has been um very focused on the role that citizens united has played in this process by essentially transforming every corporate treasury in the country into a potential political slush fund for the CEOs to spend as they will well it is a big challenge in the fossil fuel industry had about $300 billion of net profit last year even 1% of that reinvested in the political campaigns uh result in a significant corrupting factor in terms of the the vision of government B and for the people versus bu and for the powerful I want to turn to uh Plastics uh Plastics are largely made from fossil gas which is a more accurate way to describe it or methane gas and to use the industry's preferred term of of natural gas and um one of the big goals of the industry is as they see people using less gas for home home heating less fossil gas for home heating is well where can we expand so there's a vision of tripling plastics production over the next couple uh decades thus tripling the use of fossil gas for that purpose we see in this area misinformation and disinformation as well and uh did your investigation touch any on the misinformation and disinformation regarding Plastics um I don't want to say that it did not Senator and there there was and is so much to absorb uh that I I can't remember but I'm definitely happy to get back to you on that I mean there's certainly a lot of mention of plastics which are an essential part of the problem obviously but I don't remember about specific uh efforts to mislead and deceive related to plastic great I I will appreciate uh any additional work you may do in the future to help touch into that plastic space as well because very closely are related to the the broader misinformation disinformation campaign and the more we know about the impact of plastics on ecosystem health and on of course trash and of but now micro and nanoplastics affecting our human bodies and Plastics are endocrine disruptor so it's it's a big deal and there's a lot of misinformation going there in an effort to promote a future of a lot more Plastics damaging our ecosystems in he and and there are huge I know plastic dumps that have essentially formed in different oceans um the conglomerations of plastic no absolutely through and and it's almost impossible to get it out if you think of floating bottles people think we can get that out but get micro and the nanoplastics out of the ocean not not uh doable I want to turn to carbon capture and sequestration and uh CCS uh is often promoted as well we can we can burn uh fossils and then we can capture the carbon out of the Smoke Stack if you will and we can store it in the ground so stop worrying is CC c s a magical cure to the challenge of carbon combustion fossil fuel combustion or is it basically part of a misleading uh strategy kind of like the algae strategy referred to that is intended to make people say uh Don't Worry Be Happy well um I don't want to write it off completely but certainly we found that the way it was treated by the oil and gas companies was as a shiny flashy object that would capture public attention and um but did not actually uh command a serious investment of the resources in capital expenditures of the oil and gas companies so they certainly are not treating it as any kind of Panacea um and it it does seem to be part of a pattern where the big oil companies rather than focusing on the things we know we can actually do and get done focus on things that can't be done so uh we know that the wind and solar and other renewable energy sources um are right now the best pathway out of this um but we you know saw the focus on algae for example instead which looked to me very much like a marketing effort thank you very much thank you very much uh senator Merkley and thank you for your very impressive work on the Plastics issue um

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Length: 7min 35sec (455 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2024