Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was fact-checked in the middle of a hearing by a witness over a claim about greenhouse emissions.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed in her opening statement of the hearing that oil and gas production on federal land accounted for a quarter of “greenhouse gas” emissions in the United States. Ocasio-Cortez has pushed the “Green New Deal,” an effort to counter climate change, since 2019.
“I just want to start off by correcting something the ranking member said in her opening statement. She claimed that oil and gas production on federal lands is responsible for about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions,” Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance told the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. “That’s a complete falsehood.”
The study by the United States Geological Survey said that oil and gas production accounted for 23.7% of carbon dioxide emissions over a 10-year period, and noted that the production accounted for far smaller percentages of methane and nitrogen.
“That’s based on a misreading of a USGS study of greenhouse gas emissions. And if you actually look at the numbers, production on federal lands and waters accounts for 0.6% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, not ‘nearly a quarter,’” Sgamma