API Ignores Science And Data To Push Lies About Climate Action

In the latest attempt by the American Petroleum Institute to stop action on the climate crisis, they released a new “study” based on fabricated data about the number of jobs in the fracked gas industry. API claims banning fracking on public lands would cost one million jobs, even though according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are only 636,000 jobs in oil and gas extraction.

The oil lobbyists are lying again (big surprise!).

• API has been called out before for massively inflating job losses on fracking. In March, API claimed that 7.5 million jobs would be at risk from a fracking ban on public lands, when in reality, this is an industry that supports less than one tenth that number of actual direct jobs. 
  • According to Food and Water Watch’s analysis of BLS data from 2016-2018 approximately 636,000 jobs were directly related to oil and fracked gas extraction nationally. 
  • Their findings on API’s analysis: “The employment benefits of fracking have been overhyped to manipulate the public and policymakers. With deceptive models, stunningly broad definitions and creative spin, frackers have created illusions, not jobs.”

• Some of the biggest job losses in the oil and gas industry have come from oil and gas CEOs and corporations themselves. 
  • In May, it was reported that Chevron’s CEO got a $13 million raise in 2019, at the same time the company announced layoffs for thousands of workers.
  • Just last month, ExxonMobil was removed from the Dow Jones index after more than 90 years, threatening thousands of American jobs and resulting in deep cuts to projects.

Just like Trump, the oil and gas CEOs are lying about Biden wanting to ban fracking. 

• Attacks that say Biden would eliminate fracking jobs has been debunked before by multiple independent fact checkers.
  • Biden wants to stop new fracking permits only on federal public lands, which doesn’t apply to all fracking sites.
  • For example, there are currently 106,224 fracking wells in Pennsylvania, but as of 2018 there were only 75 leases on federal land.

Voters are strongly pro-climate and pro-clean energy and support Biden’s plans to take climate action. 

• Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government should act more aggressively to combat climate change, according to the Pew Research Center, and almost as many say the problem is already affecting their community in some way.

• Also, 79% of adults say energy policy should emphasize development of “alternative” sources like wind and solar — 45% of Republicans and nearly all Democrats.

• A majority of voters in key battleground states (53 percent) support the Biden clean energy investment plan, even after hearing Republican arguments against it.

• Even in Pennsylvania where the politics of fracking are headline news, voters support stronger regulations in general on oil and gas fracking (+43), and when given further details around what that could consist of, the support for increased regulations goes up to +58. What’s more, voters in the state also support phasing out fracking by 2050 (+34) and phasing out new fracking permits on public lands/waters (+32)

Biden’s plan also would protect us from air and water pollution:

• Chemicals leaking from natural gas wells can cause serious health issues including cancer and birth defects.

• People living near natural-gas wells were more than twice as likely to report health problems than those farther away.

• Air pollution from the oil and gas industry causes nearly 2,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.

• Studies have shown that dangerous levels of toxic air pollution near fracking sites have resulted in rural areas having worse smog levels than downtown Los Angeles.

• There is a methane “hot spot” roughly half the size of Connecticut over the four corners area in the Southwestern United States.

• The impact of methane on climate change is 25 times greater than CO2 pound for pound.