Last week, there was a slew of submissions of briefs to the case in which a number of cities and counties in California are suing fossil fuel companies. These updates were reported by Dana Drugmand at Climate Liability News and made available at Columbia’s Sabin Center litigation tracker.
A few of briefs focused on a rather mundane jurisdictional issue, like whether the case should remain in state court or be removed to the federal courts--the latter being what the fossil fuel companies want. Organizations representing cities and mayors described the case as raising “textbook claims under state law,” not federal action, meaning it should remain in state court. This view was echoed in a filing by eight other states.
The California State Association of Counties similarly argue in its brief that federal regulation of the oil industry “cannot justify tying the hands of local governments.” Meanwhile, NRDC says in its brief there’s no “unique federal interest in climate change” that would overrule these state law claims. Public Citizen’s filing is a little sharper: it points out that the tobacco industry tried this same argument, and lost in the Supreme Court.
As we well know, that’s not the only similarity with the tobacco industry. For a rundown on how the fossil fuel industry has spent millions of dollars over the past decades to mislead the public about the risks of its product, see a filing from a number of denial researchers and the Center for Climate Integrity.
To reaffirm the scientific consensus the industry has consistently tried to cast doubt upon, a group of leading academics, including Nobel Prize winner Mario Molina, filed a brief informing the court of the science of climate change, as well as the cost of its impacts.
And then, because the Chamber of Commerce had (predictably) filed in support of the fossil fuel industry back in November, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) filed a brief on how the Chamber has been a stalwart anti-climate lobbying force on the Hill.
If all that seems like a lot, it is!
But unfortunately for the fossil fuel industry, and fortunately for those of us who enjoy a livable climate, these are only the filings for one of the many ongoing cases. To get a handle on the others, InsideClimate News published last month a great timeline of coverage of all the various People vs. Polluters cases last month.
While the odds of any particular suit succeeding are always low, it’s enough of a concern to the industry that it created a project at one of its front groups dedicated to pushing back on these suits in addition to a whole new second front group that focuses on climate litigation almost entirely. These moves come with other strategies like dropping a million dollars into the conservative carbon tax plan that includes a clause protecting the industry from lawsuits like these.
Big polluters no doubt hope this money will change the public’s increasingly dour perception of the industry. But the decades they spent paying organizations like the Chamber to try and convince the public their product wasn’t changing the climate, even years after their own research concluded it was?
Well, no amount of money can change the past.
(At least not that we know of…)
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