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center for climate integrity
US Supreme Court Seeks Biden Admin Opinion on Climate Suits Against Big Oil
Republican attorneys general are engaged in what one critic called "an obvious attempt to shield fossil fuel companies from facing accountability for their climate lies."
Oct 08, 2024
In yet another recent display of what's at stake in this year's U.S. presidential race, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday requested that the Biden administration weigh in on a case intended to thwart climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies.
The justices invited U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar—an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden who represents the federal government in court—to file a brief "expressing the views of the United States" regarding Alabama v. California.
In May, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and 18 of his Republican colleagues launched their bid to block lawsuits that several Democrat-led states including California have brought against energy giants for deceiving the public while fueling the global climate emergency. Multiple U.S. municipalities have filed similar suits against Big Oil.
Although justices have rejected the oil and gas industry's efforts to shift those suits from state to federal court, six of them are right-wingers with a record of anti-environment rulings. A spokesperson for Marshall toldReuters that the new request of Prelogar is "an encouraging sign that the justices are taking seriously the complaint of 19 states."
"Communities deserve their day in court to hold Big Oil accountable."
Meanwhile, Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), took aim at the Alabama-led case, saying in a statement that "this meritless, politically driven request is an obvious attempt to shield fossil fuel companies from facing accountability for their climate lies and the monumental damage they're causing."
"It should be a no-brainer for the solicitor general to oppose this petition and for the Supreme Court to reject it," he added. "Communities deserve their day in court to hold Big Oil accountable."
Wiles responded similarly in June, when the Supreme Court asked Prelogar to weigh in on a case brought by the City and County of Honolulu.
Alyssa Johl, CCI's vice president of legal and general counsel, said at the time that "lawsuits like Honolulu's are not seeking to solve climate change or regulate emissions—these plaintiffs simply want Big Oil to stop lying and pay their fair share of the damages they knowingly caused. The solicitor general should make clear that federal laws do not preempt the ability of communities to hold companies accountable for their deceptive claims under state law."
Reuters pointed out Monday that Prelogar has not yet filed a brief in that case, but has some history with these suits:
The Democratic-led states have noted that the Supreme Court has previously rejected bids by oil companies to move several such lawsuits to federal court, after numerous U.S. appeals courts said the claims are not preempted by federal law.
Prelogar had weighed in on that issue as well and had successfully urged the justices to reject the oil companies' appeals.
Although it's not yet clear where the Biden administration will come down on either of these cases—and the U.S. Department of Justice has infamously fought a climate suit that youth plaintiffs filed against the federal government—the high court's move comes less than a month away from a presidential election in which the fossil fuel-driven global emergency is a divisive issue.
The Republican nominee, former Republican President Donald Trump, has pledged to roll back the Biden administration's insufficient yet historic progress on climate policy if the fossil fuel industry pours $1 billion into his campaign.
His Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is facing some criticism for watering down her previous climate policies but also had broad support from green groups, including some that had declined to endorse Biden before he dropped out and endorsed her in July.
Some climate campaigners and survivors of extreme weather events hope that Harris' election in November will lead to the Department of Justice launching a criminal case against fossil fuel companies, as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called for in May after conducting a three-year congressional investigation.
Harris is "the perfect person to prosecute the case against Big Oil," Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn wrote in a Common Dreams opinion piece this summer. As California's attorney general, she "went after ConocoPhillips (the company behind the Willow Project in Alaska) for air quality violations at their gas stations and prosecuted a pipeline company for a 2015 spill in Santa Barbara. Before that, as San Francisco district attorney, she set up the city's first environmental justice division."
While many names have been floated as Harris' potential pick for attorney general, some climate advocates have recently urged her to pick Raskin to lead the Department of Justice. As progressive organizer Aaron Regunberg wrote for The New Republic in August, "Who better to ensure the DOJ stops bowing to fossil fuel industry pressure than the head of the House Oversight Committee's push to hold Big Oil accountable?"
Regardless of which cases are filed and how far they go, concerns remain about conflicts of interests in the courts, particularly at the highest level of the federal judiciary.
Justice Samuel Alito "has recused himself from Honolulu and other climate accountability cases—likely because of his investments in oil companies," CCI highlighted on social media Monday. "But today he did not recuse himself from the request from 19 Republican AGs to block lawsuits against Big Oil."
"Justice Amy Coney Barrett has also faced calls to recuse herself from cases against Big Oil because her father was a top attorney for Shell for 29 years," the group added. "But she has not."
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Oregon County Files First-Ever Climate Deception Lawsuit Against Gas Utility
"Gas utilities have been significant players in the historic and ongoing deception campaigns to mislead the public about the dangers of fossil fuels."
Oct 08, 2024
Multnomah County in Oregon on Monday added NW Natural to the list of defendants in its climate deception lawsuit, making the company the first-ever gas utility to face a climate lawsuit.
The county, which encompasses Portland, sued an array of fossil fuel interests last year for deceiving the public about the dangers of their products. It's one of dozens of climate lawsuits municipalities and states around the United States have filed in recent years in a bid to hold the Big Oil accountable. None have yet reached a trial.
The Multnomah County lawsuit is unique in that it seeks damages for a specific extreme weather event: the heat dome that covered Portland in 2021, killing at least 69. The county seeks $50 million in damages for the heat dome, $1.5 billion for future damages, and $50 billion for climate adaptation.
"It is our purpose to hold accountable all of the companies that we allege engaged in wrongdoing associated with carbon pollution that has so negatively affected climate," Jeffrey Simon, co-lead counsel for Multnomah County, toldOPB following the revision to the list of defendants.
Notorious greenwasher and climate villain NW Natural is the first US gas utility to be sued in a climate accountability lawsuit.
The company accounts for 9% of Oregon's greenhouse gas emissions.
Thank you to @multco for holding polluters accountable. https://t.co/qWgmXQKWW0
— Breach Collective (@breachcollectiv) October 8, 2024
The lawsuit now names 24 defendants, 13 of which are oil and gas companies. The county also on Monday added the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine to the list.
A federal judge ruled in June that the case could proceed in Oregon state court—a loss for Big Oil, which had sought to move it to federal court.
Experts said the move to include NW Natural in the case could be the start of a movement to hold utilities accountable for their role in the fossil fuel economy and for deceiving the public about natural gas.
"Gas utilities have been significant players in the historic and ongoing deception campaigns to mislead the public about the dangers of fossil fuels," Alyssa Johl, general counsel at the Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement. "NW Natural is now the first to be named as a defendant in a climate deception lawsuit, but it likely won't be the last."
"Gas utilities have known for decades that their products fuel the climate crisis, yet they continue to deceptively market methane gas as a climate solution," she added.
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Most US Voters Want Plastics Industry Held Accountable for Recycling Deception: Poll
"No one is really OK with a corporation lying to consumers. What jumps out here is the overwhelming agreement among voters that it's deceptive and wrong for companies to label a product as recyclable when it's not."
Sep 09, 2024
Most U.S. voters would support officials in their state taking legal action against the plastics and fossil fuel industries for creating plastic pollution, based on evidence that they misled the public about the viability of recycling their products, according to a poll released Monday.
The poll, conducted by Data for Progress and the Center for Climate Integrity, follows a report CCI released in February that showed decades of industry deception about the recyclability of plastics and a yearslong, ongoing investigation by the California attorney general, which could lead to a lawsuit.
The poll indicates that 70% of voters support such a lawsuit and even 54% of Republicans do so.
"Regardless of your politics, no one is really OK with a corporation lying to consumers," Davis Allen, a CCI researcher, said in a statement. "What jumps out here is the overwhelming agreement among voters that it's deceptive and wrong for companies to label a product as recyclable when it's not."
Allen's colleague Alyssa Johl, a CCI vice president, argued that the poll bolsters the case that attorneys general should pursue lawsuits against industry for its role in creating plastic waste and deceiving the public about recycling.
"As we're watching to see what comes from California's investigation, it's clear that the public is very concerned about the plastic waste crisis and would support holding Big Oil and the plastics industry accountable for the fraud of plastic recycling," she said. "Any attorney general or public official who is considering action on this issue should know that both the law and public opinion are on their side."
📣 New poll from us & @DataProgress:
The vast majority of U.S. voters — including 54% of Republicans — support legal action against Big Oil & the plastics industry for lying about the viability of plastic recycling and causing the plastic waste crisis. https://t.co/YFjmxzeOYT pic.twitter.com/0oHAMHPtem
— Center for Climate Integrity (@climatecosts) September 9, 2024
The survey, conducted on 1,231 web panel respondents, also included a number of other plastics-related questions. More than two-thirds of respondents, after being prompted with information during the course of the survey, said the plastics industry should have "a great deal of responsibility" to address the plastic crisis, while 59% said the same about the fossil fuel industry. The industries are in fact connected; almost all plastics are made out of fossil fuels.
More than 60% of respondents strongly agreed—and 85% agreed at least "somewhat"—that it was deceptive to put the "chasing arrows" symbol on products that were not in fact recyclable. California restricted the practice with a 2021 law, and the Federal Trade Commission is revising its guidelines following recommendations issued last year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which said the use of the symbol can be "deceptive or misleading."
The poll showed that Americans tend to overestimate the amount of plastic being recycled. The average respondent guessed that about 45% of plastic gets recycled, when in fact a 2021 Greenpeace report indicated that the real figure is about 6%.
Despite the negative impacts of plastic waste, plastic production continues to increase worldwide. About 220 million tons of plastic waste are expected to be generated this year alone. Last week, a study in Nature, a leading journal, estimated global plastic waste emissions at about 52 million metric tons per year.
Recycling plastic is logistically challenging because many products are made of composites of different types of plastic and because the quality of the material goes down with each generation of use.
The poll comes out during the final stages of negotiations on a global plastics treaty, which has been in the works for several years. Ahead of United Nations General Assembly meetings this week, a group of celebrities including Bette Midler called for strong action on plastics in an open letter published by Greenpeace.
The final global plastics treaty negotiations will be held in Busan, South Korea starting November 25. The previous major round of negotiations, in April, was dominated by corporate lobbyists, advocates said. Activists and Indigenous leaders were also left out of a smaller meeting in Thailand last month, drawing criticism.
The call for accountability for plastics producers comes as the fossil fuel industry already faces legal action for its role in perpetuating the climate crisis. Dozens of cities and states have filed suits. None has yet reached the trial stage. The one that is closest to doing so, City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco et al., has been the subject of political and legal wrangling, with the industry trying to have the suit dismissed.
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