On Thursday afternoon, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform spoke with leaders in the oil and gas industry about attempts to mislead the public regarding their significant contributions to speeding up the climate change crisis.
Fossil Fuel companies are sitting on 13.9 million acres of our federal land they aren't even using—and they want even more.
If each acre were a grain of rice, that would be 479 pounds. I demonstrated at a hearing with Big Oil ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/fFr53vIglr
— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) October 28, 2021
Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) came as always, prepared with visual aids to make her points clear. When her questioning began, she appeared via video from her carport with, first, jars of M&Ms
According to InStyle magazine, who covered Twitter’s reaction to the demonstration:
‘The mom of three and member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform asked the leaders of the oil industry, “How many acres of public land are already leased by fossil fuel companies?”
‘Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute (API), began dithering on about her “misunderstanding” of the industry before Porter forcefully reclaimed her time. “The answer is 13.9 million acres,” she said. “To visualize how much land that is, if each grain of rice was one acre, that would be 479 pounds of rice.”‘
Shell's CEO said that meeting energy demand while addressing climate change is "one of the defining challenges of our time." But @Shell won't put its money where its mouth is. I made this hypocrisy plain with a simple visual. pic.twitter.com/QvJHQiVxVm
— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) October 28, 2021
‘After cutting to another member of the API, the camera pivoted back to Porter, who was leaning on an open bag of rice as the grains spilled across the garage floor, the equivalent, apparently, of the acreage of Maryland and New Jersey. “You have two of our 50 states at a price that makes the Lousisana Purchase look like a ripoff and you’re not even using it,” she says, before flipping to the next page of her script. “What more do you need?”‘
Twitter loved the moment and praised Porter’s use of visual aids and ability to simplify the issues to cut through the oil and gas industry heads’ attempts to dismiss the public’s concerns. Read some of their comments below:
