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Taking on Big Oil is good politics

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Taking on Big Oil is good politics

Here’s how state climate accountability lawsuits — and the officials who brought them — fared this election.

ExxonKnews
Nov 10, 2022
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Taking on Big Oil is good politics

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Emily Sanders is the Center for Climate Integrity’s editorial lead. Catch up with her on Twitter here.


Graphic design by Tess Abbot

There was no shortage of crucial issues on the ballot this year — including the fight to hold fossil fuel giants accountable for their role in the climate crisis. Across the country, attorneys general who have sued Big Oil were re-elected, while other offices will change hands to new leaders who are expected to continue prosecuting those cases. Overall, taking on the world’s biggest polluters proved a politically popular move for candidates who campaigned on climate accountability.

Here’s our overview on how the issue fared in this midterm election.

Minnesota 

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and Koch Industries in 2020 for orchestrating a decades-long campaign to mislead Minnesotans about the damage fossil fuels would cause to the climate. His opponent called the lawsuit “frivolous” and made it an election issue during this year’s campaign. But Ellison vociferously defended the case, and he just won re-election.  

“This lawsuit is in the long and successful tradition of Minnesota attorneys general standing up to protect Minnesotans from corporate fraud and deception by Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, and now Big Oil," Ellison told the Star Tribune in August. "This is what Minnesotans expect from their attorney general. It's the right fight to be having."

Twitter avatar for @keithellison
Keith Ellison @keithellison
Big Pharma. Big oil. Big tobacco. When corporations like these have attempted to scam & steal from Minnesotans, Keith has fought on behalf of the people & won settlements that put 100s of millions back into our communities. We can’t trust Schultz to stand up for MNs. #Keith4AG
11:21 PM ∙ Oct 23, 2022
158Likes66Retweets

Ellison’s consumer fraud lawsuit seeks to make Exxon, Koch and API fund a corrective campaign to educate the public about the climate crisis, publish all of their internal research on climate change, and disgorge the profits they made through false advertising, among other remedies. 

Last year, a federal court handed Minnesota a victory when it ruled the case could proceed in state court, where it was filed. U.S. Chief District Judge John Tunheim described the fossil fuel defendants’ arguments to move the case to federal court as a “caricature” of the state’s actual claims. The state is now awaiting a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Big Oil’s appeal of that decision.

Massachusetts 

Maura Healey, one of the first attorneys general to take Exxon to court, was overwhelmingly elected the next governor of Massachusetts after featuring her lawsuit against Exxon in campaign ads. Healey campaigned on her role as a prosecutor standing up for consumers against the abuse of corporate giants. “She stood up to ExxonMobil for lying about climate change,” touted one of her ads. 

The commonwealth’s newly elected attorney general, Andrea Campbell, has vowed to carry on many of Healey’s climate and environmental initiatives including “challeng[ing] industry actions that mislead Massachusetts consumers and investors about the risks of climate change.” In May, the Massachusetts Supreme Court unanimously rejected Exxon’s motion to dismiss the case, which is now actively in discovery as it heads toward trial in state court. 

Twitter avatar for @MassAGO
Maura Healey @MassAGO
Huge news—the court has denied Exxon's motions to dismiss our case! This is a big step for our work to hold Exxon accountable for lying about climate change to MA consumers and investors. We look forward to litigating our claims and stopping Exxon’s continued illegal deception.
9:49 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2021
684Likes127Retweets

Connecticut

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong was re-elected after he filed a lawsuit in 2020 to hold Exxon accountable for an “ongoing systematic campaign of lies and deception” about the polluter’s role in the climate crisis. Last year, Connecticut won a federal district court ruling to keep its consumer protection case in state court. It now awaits a ruling on Exxon’s appeal of that decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. 

Twitter avatar for @climatecosts
Center for Climate Integrity @climatecosts
Two years ago, @AGWilliamTong sued ExxonMobil “for lying to Connecticut & the American people” about its role in the climate crisis. Now CT is fighting for its case against Exxon to proceed in state court, where the oil giant is desperate to avoid trial. climateintegrity.org/news/connectic…
7:40 PM ∙ Sep 19, 2022
17Likes10Retweets

Rhode Island 

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha wasn’t in office when the Ocean State filed the first statewide climate damages suit against Big Oil companies in 2018. But since coming into office, Neronha has carried the litigation forward, seeking to hold major fossil fuel companies accountable for the local costs of rising seas and more severe storms. This week, he too won re-election. 

Rhode Island won a major victory against Big Oil earlier this year, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that the case could proceed in state court. “After decades of climate change deception by the fossil fuel defendants, and now nearly four years of delay tactics in our lawsuit to hold them accountable for it, our residents, workers, businesses and taxpayers are ready for their day in court," Neronha said in response.

Delaware

Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings handily won her re-election this week, too, after she sued 31 fossil fuel companies for climate fraud and damages in 2020. 

In August, Delaware won the latest federal appeals court ruling against Big Oil, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously affirmed a lower court’s decision to let the case proceed in state court. 

Twitter avatar for @DE_DOJ
Attorney General Kathy Jennings @DE_DOJ
ICYMI: Yesterday I spoke with @KatyTurNBC about our lawsuit against 31 fossil fuel companies, including Exxon and the American Petroleum Institute, over the damage that climate change has done to Delaware.
5:13 PM ∙ Sep 11, 2020
204Likes58Retweets

​​Vermont

Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan did not seek re-election this cycle after he filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Exxon, Shell, Sunoco, and CITGO last year. But the campaign manager of Vermont’s next attorney general, Charity Clark, recently told E&E that the office would continue litigating the case.

Vermont’s lawsuit seeks to stop the companies from lying to consumers through greenwashing and other deceptive practices, as well as force them to disgorge profits they made “as a result of unlawful acts or practices.” 

A federal district court is now considering Vermont’s motion to allow the lawsuit to proceed in state court, where it was filed. 

Washington, D.C.

Brian Schwalb, the District of Columbia’s next attorney general, is poised to take over former Attorney General Karl A. Racine’s consumer protection lawsuit against Exxon, BP, Chevron, and Shell for their “sophisticated, coordinated, tobacco-industry style campaigns involving industry associations and front groups to deceive and mislead the public.” Racine, who filed the case in 2020, did not seek re-election. A federal district court is now considering D.C.’s motion to bring the case back to state court.

California

Another attorney general who won re-election, California’s Rob Bonta, has not filed a lawsuit against Big Oil, but in April he did launch an investigation into how fossil fuel and petrochemical companies are deceiving the public about the efficacy of plastics recycling. As part of that investigation, he issued a subpoena for documents to Exxon, whose oil and gas products are used to make plastic, for its outsized role in an “aggressive campaign to deceive the public, perpetuating a myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis.” 

All told, one lesson to take away from this election: standing with people over polluters will get you places.

Twitter avatar for @JohnFetterman
John Fetterman @JohnFetterman
Oz is a simp for Big Oil. He swipes right on these greedy corporations making record profits while PA families pay more at the pump. I'll actually stand up to the oil executives + crack down on their disgusting price gouging. 💯 #PASenateDebate
2:46 AM ∙ Oct 26, 2022
5,505Likes1,421Retweets

ICYMI News Roundup

  • ‘Explosion’ in number of fossil fuel lobbyists at Cop27 climate summit

  • How US climate lawsuits could hold Big Oil accountable

  • COP27: Polluters must pay for climate change, poor nations tell rich

  • The unexpected climate wins of the midterms

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