April Fools

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Gene Karpinski, President of the League of Conservation Voters, today acknowledged his utter shock at the testimony of executives from the five largest oil companies before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Leaked copies of testimony broke early this morning and represent an unprecedented shift in the oil and gas industry’s political strategy.

“After decades of standing in the way of clean energy, energy efficiency, and global warming legislation, it looks like these oil execs finally got a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future,” Karpinski said.

The leaked testimony gives an indication of the fundamental change in policy.

Peter Robertson, the Vice Chairman of Chevron, began his testimony with an apology to the people of the world on behalf of the Big Oil companies for standing in the way of vital global warming legislation. He promised that the $123 billion profits of these five companies in 2007 would be directly invested into research and implementation of clean, renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar, and geothermal. Tears streaming down his face, Robertson stated “I only hope my grandchildren can forgive me.”

J. Stephen Simon, ExxonMobil Senior Vice President publicly repudiated the 2006 statement by his boss, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson that “At a minimum, there’s an enormous amount of uncertainty around this whole question [of global warming].” Simon admitted that global warming is a real and dangerous issue, and that ExxonMobil had spent more than $23 million to fund bogus scientific studies to mislead the public about global warming. He promised to return that money to consumers, who paid for it with record prices at the pump.

John Hofmeister, President of the Shell Oil Company, begged consumers’ forgiveness for the more than $295,000,000 donated to politicians and political action committees by Big Oil in the last decade. Promising to put that money into savings at the pump, Hofmeister said, “We have used our record profits in an attempt to buy off the United States government and to pilfer another $18 billion from taxpayers who are already paying close to $4 at the pump. We have no excuse.

Today, April 1, is the last time we play the American people for fools.”