By Rene Marsh | CNN Big Oil companies have engaged in a “long-running greenwashing campaign” while raking in “record profits at the expense of American consumers,” the Democratic-led House Oversight Committee has found after a year-long investigation into climate disinformation from the fossil fuel industry.In a 2016 email from a BP executive to John Mingé, then-Chairman and President of BP America, and others, about climate and emissions, an employee assessed that the company often adopted an obstructionist strategy with regulators, noting, “we wait for the rules to come out, we don’t like what we see, and then try to resist and block.” “The fossil fuel industry has of late been involved in extensive “greenwashing”—misleading claims in advertisements, particularly on social media, claiming or suggesting that they are “Paris aligned,” and that they are committed to meaningful solutions,” Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor who has studied the fossil fuel industry’s rebuke of climate science and consulted for law firms that have brought suits against the fossil fuel industry, told CNN.“Numerous analyses shows that these claims are untrue.” BP, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were the focus of Democratic lawmakers’ investigation.“If specific members of the committee are so certain they’re right, why did they have to take so many things out of context to prove their point?” Megan Bloomgren, the senior vice president for the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement the industry has focused on producing “affordable, reliable energy while tackling the climate challenge,” and that “any allegations to the contrary are false.” “The U.S. natural gas and oil industry has contributed to the significant progress the U.S. has made in reducing America’s CO2 emissions to near generational lows with the increased use of natural gas,” Bloomgren said.“We are poised to be a leader in the next generation of low carbon technologies, including CCUS and Hydrogen—technologies widely recognized to be critical to meet the world’s emissions reduction targets.” Democratic lawmakers had hoped the committee’s hearings would be the fossil fuel industry’s “Big Tobacco” moment — a nod to the famous 1994 hearings when tobacco CEOs insisted that cigarettes were not addictive, triggering accusations of perjury and federal investigations."