“For more than 50 years, Big Oil has been lying to us — covering up the fact that they’ve long known how dangerous the fossil fuels they produce are for our planet.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom in September, announcing a major lawsuit in state court against BIG OIL.
What we do know: All the major petroleum companies knew about the accumulation of greenhouse gasses, generated by burning fossil fuels, at least since the 1970s, most probably well before that. They also knew that the ozone layer would trap those gasses, and that eventually that accumulation would act like a greenhouse, raising the earth’s temperature on a cumulative basis. All the major petroleum players have contributed a lot of money to lobby Congress for favorable tax treatment (a very nice “depletion allowance” under the Internal Revenue Code as only one small benefit), to exempt fracking chemicals from being regulated by the EPA and increase pollution tolerance levels, and state-by-state (32 states produce oil and/or gas) to reap local benefits as well.
They fought every effort to clean up gasoline, diesel, aviation fuels and home heating oil, fabricating positive studies on pollution and burying a vastly greater number of negative studies, using contributions to university research funding as what was obviously an academic bribe. They supported and continue to support token efforts to pursue fairly small, even token, alternative energy projects, which the advertise heavily (see above), while simultaneously continuing lobbying efforts to squelch incentives for energy consumers to switch to renewables, effectively leading the current MAGA effort to repeal all the alternative energy provisions in Biden’s successful Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, sabotaging the construction of modern charging stations and the sale of EV’s wherever they can. Most of this negativity has been accomplished with one, consistent, uniform strategy: lie fervently and frequently and do whatever you can to suppress the truth.
BIG OIL has been wildly successful. Half the US population believes that the ravages of climate change have been greatly exaggerated, that we really don’t need to change our ways, and even if climate change does haunt us, some technology will eventually come along to make it better… Even with the rising intensity of wildfires, hurricanes and floods, the searing and record-breaking heatwaves, the massive coastal erosion, the disappearance of vast sources of fresh water, the loss of arable land which has become desertified… the loss of life and property that goes with all that. Plus the rise into unaffordability of property insurance (many insurance companies in places like Florida and California are simply pulling out of those markets entirely), the skyrocketing price of food (less land and warmer temperatures are stimulating increases in diseases for plants, animals and… us) and the losses that state and local governments have to pay after each and every climate change driven natural disaster. Out of your pocket in oh-so-many ways.
Meanwhile, BIG OIL is enjoying record profits. They’ve managed to slow the construction of charging stations so that consumers have also slowed buying EVs. Hybrids are hotter. Cars have been built to last longer, so gas powered vehicles are sticking around a whole lot longer. Meanwhile, federal, state and local taxes are increasingly necessary to pay for post-climate-change mega-disasters. Governments in some areas are even figuring out how to subsidize property insurance coverage.
Through all this pain, BIG OIL is laughing all the way to the bank. Candidates’ hands remain outstretched, and legislation joyfully follows. Red state elected officials are committed to the MAGA mantra – we will regulate women’s bodies and elementary school books, but we will do everything in our power to keep fossil fuels as America’s major and continuing energy source. Just so you appreciate how successful they have been: the United States is currently the largest oil and gas producing nation on earth, eclipsing even Saudi Arabia and Russia!
Well, if the red states are pushing to expand the use of fossil fuels, more than a few blue states not only want to stop the de facto subsidizing of BIG OIL’s encouraging consumers to use more oil and gas with all that favorable legislation… but for BIG OIL to pay for the damage that they have inflicted on all of us by lying, covering up and making sure that legislators were well “provided for.” Led by California (of course), several blue state attorneys general have filed a growing litany of lawsuits against BIG OIL to hold them accountable for the trillions of dollars of hard damage they have knowingly inflicted on all of us.
Writing for the June 6th Los Angeles Times, David G Savage tells us about that litigation and how BIG OIL is asking the same Supreme Court that reversed Roe vs Wade to shelter them and their profits from being held accountable for the destruction they knowingly caused: “The climate change lawsuits at issue are patterned after the successful mass lawsuits filed by states and others against the tobacco industry over cigarettes and the pharmaceutical industry over opioids.
“Cigarettes and opioids were sold legally, but the suits alleged that industry officials conspired to deceive the public and hide the true dangers of their highly profitable products… In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sounded the same theme when they filed a lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court against five of the largest oil and gas companies — Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP — and the American Petroleum Institute for what they described as a ‘decades-long campaign of deception’ that caused climate-related harm to California…
“Adding to Newsom’s remarks quoted above, Bonta said the oil and gas companies ‘have privately known the truth for decades — that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change — but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment. ... It is time they pay to abate the harm they have caused.’
“Under state law, plaintiffs can seek damages for broad and open-ended claims such as failure to warn of danger, false advertising and creating a public nuisance. All three claims are cited in California’s lawsuit. Nationally, by contrast, damage claims are usually limited to those that arise from a federal law… Officials in cities and states suing the energy industry want to keep the climate change cases in state courts, while industry lawyers have fought — so far unsuccessfully — to move them to the federal level.
“Over the last four years, the [Supreme Court] justices have turned away procedural appeals from the energy industry seeking to transfer these cases from state to federal courts… This week [early June], however, industry lawyers are asking the justices to decide the underlying question: Does federal law, and the Clean Air Act, override or preempt states and their courts from punishing the oil industry for the harm caused by greenhouse gases?” Can BIG OIL use Trump-appointed judges in the federal system to vitiate and minimize the scope of our nation’s environmental legislation, by using federal preemption to deny states the right to sue for the very damages they have suffered… and apply MAGA judges’ watered down interpretation of federal environmental laws instead?
I’m Peter Dekom, and take a deep breath, if you can, and ask yourself if you believe BIG OIL shouldn’t have to worry about being held accountable for the damages they have knowingly caused.
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