Investigate fossil fuel industry, top Democrats urge justice department

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Jamie Raskin highlight decades-long efforts to sow doubts about climate crisis

Democrats from two powerful committees are urging Joe Biden's justice department to investigate the fossil fuel industry over its decades-long attempts to sow doubt about the climate crisis.

We believe that there is adequate evidence that fossil fuel industry companies and trade associations may have violated one or more federal statutes," the Senate budget committee chair, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, wrote in a Wednesday letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland.