Just a week after receiving similar criticism from congressional Democrats, Big Oil is once again facing allegations of misleading the public in an attempt to stall climate action and protect its bottom line.
In a report published Monday, environmental advocacy group Food and Water Watch accuses the industry’s biggest trade association of exaggerating the number of nationwide jobs created and sustained by oil and gas companies by more than 10 million. Fossil fuel advocates cite those inflated numbers, the report’s authors argue, when lobbying against fracking bans, drilling limitations and other policies aimed at reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The American Petroleum Institute’s most recent “State of American Energy” report, which uses the trade association’s estimates from 2019, “claims that 11.3 million jobs are supported by the oil and gas industry,” Food and Water Watch wrote in its Monday report. “In reality, there were only 695,000 oil and gas jobs nationally in 2019.”
“The oil and gas industry and its proponents are misleading the public and policymakers about the economic benefits produced by this destructive industry,” the report’s authors added. “Their false claims do not add up and cannot be allowed to stall a rapid transition to 100 percent clean, renewable energy.”
Both the American Petroleum Institute, or API, and Food and Water Watch use government data in their analyses—though API draws from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, while Food and Water...
News The Jewellers Association of Australia (JAA) has corrected the false claims it made about its financial affairs in a statement published on 31 March. These false claims were first documented b...