New documents released recently expose a plot by fossil fuel companies to buy favorable research from US colleges.
In 2021, the US House of Representatives, then under the control of Democrats, created an oversight and accountability committee to examine the influence of fossil fuel companies on American society. When Republicans gained control of the House after the 2022 election, they disbanded the committee. But Senator Sheldon Whitehouse formed a joint committee to continue that investigation, which had subpoenaed financial records from a number of fossil fuel companies.
In recent years, fossil fuel combustion has been responsible for approximately 73 percent of the U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions and 89 percent of the world’s emissions. While taxpayers have been forced to pick up the tab for the climate crisis, fossil fuel companies have continued to prosper. In 2021, leading fossil fuel companies made $205 billion in profits, of which their executives pocketed $394 million.
“You want a sponsor with a vested interest that is paying attention to the data and influencing research directions and informing academics of market needs,” Matthew Posewitz, at the Colorado School of Mines, said. Like Huber, Posewitz received funding from ExxonMobil for his lab, which focuses on algae research. “Academics can sometimes get into things that don’t fulfill any market need. Sponsorships can bridge that information deficit.
Even critics of these funding relationships don’t necessarily think the funding itself should go away, just the strings attached to it. “Fossil fuel companies should be paying for climate solutions,” Cohen said. “But they shouldn’t have any direct role in how the production of knowledge relevant to those solutions is coming about.”As this is being written, armed security forces and police are storming many of the universities that have been sucking off the fossil fuel industry for decades.
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