In the past decade, about three dozen states and local governments have sued the largest oil companies in the world, with the argument that industry hid what he knew about the dangers of global warming.
The suits are considered a major threat to fossil fuel companies, possibly on the scale of the settlement of the tobacco industry a quarter of a century ago that held cigarette makers financially responsible for the health consequences of smoking for generations of people.
Now the campaign to stop the oil stains is warmed up.
In recent weeks, President Trump the lawsuits explained A threat to the American economy and calls them “ideologically motivated” obstacles for his purpose of energy dominance. The Ministry of Justice has taken the aggressive step to preventively sue two states to try to prevent them from even submitting such lawsuits.
Environmental activists grow concerned that the industry will repeat Previous efforts to lobby for a federal immunity determination, similar to the 2005 Shield legislation that protects armsmakers of liability when their weapons are used in crimes.
The lawsuits have adopted more importance, their supporters say, while the Trump government withdraws from policy to combat climate change and to weat the nation of the burning of fossil fuels. While states and cities are confronted with increasing costs of flooding, forest fires and other disasters that are intensified by global warming, they consider lawsuits to be one of the few remaining ways to strengthen their budgets.
“The climate crisis is here and the costs of survival that it rises every day,” said Gov. Josh Green van Hawaii this month when he announced that his state would participate in the parade of court cases. “The burden should fall on those who are cheated and failed to warn consumers of the climate dangers lurking in their products.”
His comments were remarkable considering that the Ministry of Justice had only a few hours earlier his state complained, and MichiganTo try to prevent them from submitting such lawsuits. Pamela Bondi, the Attorney General of the United States, called the suits a threat to national security and “illegal barriers to the production of affordable, reliable energy that Americans deserve.”
Mrs. Bondi also announced packs Against New York and Vermont about their new climate superfunde laws, which try to impose liability for past emissions to companies to finance climate adjustment projects.
The attorney general of Michigan, Dana Nessel, has indicated that the state will continue with his court case.
But the actions of the Ministry of Justice could scare other states and municipalities to submit an application, or even influence it that have sued them to leave their affairs. A day after Mrs Bondi’s announcement, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico quietly dropped his business. A spokeswoman for Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón said the case had been submitted by an earlier administration and that she is committed to ‘pro-growth energy agenda’.
The oil companies and their allies claim that the lawsuit is an attempt by local officials to get the power over energy policy away from the federal government.
When states and cities “try to create policies through judicial Fiat in a random, random way throughout the country, in several areas of law, you create damage to the free market,” said Alan Wilson, attorney -general of South Carolina, in a recent lettering organized by the Washington Legal Foundation, that free.
Proponents say that the cases are a step in the direction of accountability. A report Wednesday by the Union of Concerned ScientistsA group of interests, in detail, which she believed was decades of evidence of a coverage by oil companies. “Without intervention, these companies will continue their deception, which will be postponed the urgent action necessary to reduce further destruction of climate,” the report said.
Both arguments have received mixed receptions from judges.
Many of the cases have brought years in the debate about whether they should continue in constitutional court (where they have been submitted) or are moved to federal courts (where oil companies expect they would prevail earlier). The oil companies claim that the matters fall under federal law.
Two recent attempts to get the Supreme Court to answer that question have failed. In one, oil companies had submitted a petition to the judges revised a statement by the Supreme Court of the State of Hawaii That a lawsuit could continue by Honolulu in the constitutional court.
The other was a more unusual request, through Procurnys General in Republican guided states Including Mr. Wilson, the Attorney General of South Carolina, to block by democratic guided states to sue oil companies about climate change. However, observers expect that the Supreme Court will visit the case again in the future, as soon as the cases have been demanded in the courts of the state.
The claims in the three dozens of lawsuits vary, but generally include accusations such as violations of laws for consumer protection, deception and public nuisance. Nobody has already ended up. Industry, however, indicate that in 2019 Exxon Mobil won a similar lawsuitThat focused on various claims, from investor fraud, in a jury rights say in New York.
Various things were rejected by judges, including those of New York City and New Jersey, and by municipal governments in Maryland. Some of those cases are being treated.
In 2021, the Federal Court of Appeal was for the second circuit the dismissal of a lawsuit maintained Brought by New York City against BP, Chevron and other companies, a decision that is often cited by industry and its allies. “Such a vast case is simply outside the boundaries of the Studies Act,” wrote Judge Richard J. Sullivan in the opinion.
But other cases move forward to the process.
On Monday, the State High Department of Colorado confirmed the decision of a lower court That a matter of the city and the county of Boulder and the county of San Miguel against Exxon Mobil and Suncor, a Canadian energy company, can continue in a constitutional court. The lawsuit outlines the expensive climate risks with which the state is confronted, including drought, floods and forest fires.
A spokeswoman for Exxon, Elise Ott, called the Meritless case and said that it “has no room for a constitutional court.” She also pointed to the investments of clean energy from the company, rise to more than half of the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Suncor did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
The Colorado case shows the split among lawyers about the disputes with high deployment. In a different opinion, two judges noted: “Boulder is not his own republic.”
The author of the different opinions, Justice Carlos Samour Jr., insisted on the American Supreme Court to tackle the issue in view of the number of municipalities that similar claims submit. “To borrow from the old Hitlied of Fleetwood Mac, the message that our court transfers to Boulder and other municipalities in Colorado is today, that” you can go your own way “to regulate interstate and international air pollution,” he wrote. “In our indivisible nation that just can’t be right.”
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