MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Ro Khanna

Interview

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Yesterday, the House Environmental Subcommittee sent letters to the CEOs of four major oil companies, along with the presence of two trade groups requesting information on their organization`s role in spreading disinformation, setting a hearing date of October 28th.

Congressman Ro Khanna is a Democrat from California. He`s chair of the Environment Subcommittee that is planning on holding these hearings and he joins me now.

Congressman, tell me what the idea is behind this hearing.

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Well, Chris, you framed it exactly correctly. We want to have big oil hearings, like Waxman had the big tobacco hearings. In fact, people advising Waxman actually are helping us craft the investigation.

There are three main objectives. First, get the executives to admit the climate disinformation they`ve had in the past.

Second, ask what the ongoing activities are in killing climate legislation, or funding shadowing group -- shadow groups.

And third, get them to commit to stop that and not run interference in the president`s agenda.

[20:55:03]

HAYES: Well, they`re probably not going to do the third, right?

KHANNA: Well, look, I mean, they`ve told their own board of directors that they`re for sustainability. I mean, they are telling the American public even in response to our letters, they`re saying that they actually are for good climate policy.

So, they have the First Amendment right to kill climate legislation. But what they don`t have the First Amendment right is to lie. They can`t lie to their board of directors, they can`t lie to their customers. And so, they need to come clean in what they`re actually doing.

HAYES: Yes, I mean, this -- I want to play this little bit of, again, from this -- that sort of interview with the -- with the lobbyists that was recorded by the Greenpeace folks and then, published by in the U.K., of him talking about the carbon tax, which I think is fascinating.

Basically, you`ve got a number of these companies say, oh, yes, we support a carbon tax. Would you think, well, that`s weird, I wouldn`t expect that. He sort of explains why that`s the case. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCOY: Nobody is going to propose a tax on all Americans. And the cynical side of me says, yes, we kind of know that. But it gives us a talking point that we can say, well, what is ExxonMobil for? We`re for a carbon tax.

No, it`s not -- it`s not going to -- carbon tax isn`t going to happen. And the bottom line is, it`s going to take political courage, political will, in order to get something done and that doesn`t exist in politics. It just doesn`t.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: What do you think of that?

KHANNA: Well, it`s the most cynical explanation. And we have actually reached out to McCoy. Exxon has already produced the documents to our committee concerning all of that. Some very concerning documents that I don`t want to go into, but they`re going to have a lot of explaining to do.

And the reality is this, Chris, as the clips you played with big tobacco, what really killed them is those executives coming to Congress and lying.

And I think if the oil executives come before our committee and lie, they`re going to be done. The best thing they can do is come clean, tell us exactly what they`ve been doing and commit to stopping it.

HAYES: Yes, why does it matter -- I mean, I would love for the record to reflect what they know and what they`ve known but why does that matter?

KHANNA: Well, why it matters is we`re going to ask them, are you going to stop spending millions and millions of dollars on killing climate legislation? And they have one of two choices. Either they say no, in which case, they`re basically lying to their board of directors, lying to the American public. Or they say yes, and then if they continue to do it, they`ve committed perjury.

The reason they`ve gotten away with this is because, frankly, Democrats haven`t controlled Congress that much over the last 20 some years. So, we`ve never had the power of subpoena, and we haven`t been willing to use it.

And Carolyn Maloney and I have said, you`re going to come in, we`re willing to use any tool in our toolbox. And so, they really now are going to be under oath and it`s a different ballgame.

HAYES: Are they -- what are they doing up on the Hill right now? I mean, you`ve got this -- you know, you`ve got the clean energy standard, it`s been changed around, a little bit of clean electricity standard, or it`s going to be amount of money paid to utilities to get the reconciliation.

But this is really be key, right? We want to get utilities get moving away from fossil fuel. And how active are they on the Hill right now on this pressing point?

KHANNA: They`re very active. I mean, the clean energy standard, in my view, is the most important part about the reconciliation bill, it would create both incentives and stakes for utilities to move towards renewable energy by 2030.

And those lobbyists are working from what I hear, both with House Democrats and some House Democrats and senators to try to say, kill it or weaken it.

And what we`re saying is, now there`s going to be a magnifying glass, because you`re going to have to answer under oath whether you`re actually engaged in that kind of lobbying. And if you are, you`re going to have to explain that to the American public.

HAYES: When you say lying to their shareholders. I mean, there`s an interesting -- the angle here, right, is that they know that their business model is not sustainable long term. Like, you can`t pull oil out of the ground in 2080. You just can`t do it, right?

So, they have to have some story they`re telling shareholder and financial markets about what they`re going to do.

KHANNA: Chris, you`re right and actually, I was in New York coincidentally a couple days ago and someone in the finance industry said they have a capital problem. They`re with ESG investment, they know that giving investment into oil and gas companies without a sustainability plan is much more expensive investment.

So, they understand all of that. They had activists, board of directors, Exxon did elected who said we want to have a green energy plan.

Darren Woods, the CEO has said, OK, I want to have a green energy plan. We support climate legislation. That`s their public posture. They can`t then simultaneously be funding third party groups to kill climate legislation. They can`t be misleading their own company shareholders and I think that`s really the crux of their liability.

HAYES: All right, Congressman, Ro Khanna we will keep our eyes on that, which is coming up. Thank you.

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