Public relations firms declined to attend a Wednesday hearing set by U.S. Democrats about whether they helped the fossil fuel industry spread disinformation about climate change, according to the House of Representatives panel holding the event.
The House Natural Resource Committee's oversight panel, led by U.S. Representative Katie Porter of California, held a hearing about the role of public relations firm in preventing climate action and released a report detailing "deceptive" and "misleading" tactics they use for their client campaigns.
"Of note, PR firms Singer Associates, Story Partners, and Pac/West Communications were invited but refused to attend," Committee spokesperson Lindsay Gressard said on Tuesday., another PR firm the committee is investigating, will not testify because it is working with the committee to turn in documents that the panel requested earlier this summer.
Hearing witness Christine Arena, a former Edelman PR executive who now works in social impact filmmaking, told the hearing that PR firm campaigns on behalf of oil companies no longer deny climate change. Anne Lee Foster, another witness on the panel who led a ballot initiative campaign in Colorado to ban fracking, told the committee about how local oil companies used a PR firm to create local citizens groups to counter fracking opponents and prevent them from get support for their petition.
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