The Supreme Court just unleashed a flood of lawsuits against Big Oil

Nearly two dozen lawsuits filed by cities and states aim to put fossil fuel companies on trial for deceiving the public about climate change. But they’ve been stuck in legal limbo for half a decade, with companies deploying several maneuvers to block them. Now a surprising source has unleashed those lawsuits: the conservative-dominated Supreme Court.

On Monday, the justices rejected petitions from Chevron, Shell, BP, and other oil companies to move these cases from the state courts where they were filed to federal courts, an arena considered more friendly to the industry. The Supreme Court’s rejection brings an end to a long jurisdictional battle, meaning that cases in Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and more can finally proceed — potentially toward jury trials.

“It’s the industry’s worst nightmare to have to explain their lies in front of a jury,” said Richard Wiles, president of The Center for Climate Integrity, an environmental advocacy organization.

The wave of lawsuits began in 2017, when cities and counties in California sued an array of oil, gas, and coal companies using state consumer protection laws that prohibit deceptive advertising. The lawsuits were set in motion by revelations that ExxonMobil had known about the dangers of burning fossil fuels since 1977but publicly cast doubt on the science and worked to block legislation to restrict carbon pollution.

Oil companies have tried to shuffle these lawsuits to federal courts for years, arguing that they weren’t really about consumer protection laws, but the broader matter of climate change, a federal concern. Judge after judge dismissed this line of reasoning, until it went all the way to the Supreme Court. Last month, the Biden administration urged the court to leave these lawsuits to the states — exactly what it ended up doing.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wanted to hear an argument from ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy, according to the order list the court released on Monday, but there weren’t enough justices on his side. Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from the decision for unstated reasons, though some have noted he owns stock in Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillipsamong the fossil fuel companies pushing to move these cases to federal courts.

“After almost six years, things are finally about to get interesting,” said Karen Sokol, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans. These procedural battles weren’t just time-consuming — they were also kind of boring. The media and the public simply aren’t captivated by the esoteric debate over whether a case belongs in federal or state courts, Sokol said.

Industry groups lamented the Supreme Court’s decision. An attorney for Chevron told Reuters he was still confident that the cases would ultimately be dismissed in state court because the magnitude of the issue required a federal response. A lawyer with the National Association of Manufacturers’ legal arm said that the Supreme Court’s move risks creating a “patchwork of state court approaches to important public policy matters that are inherently federal and global in nature.”

If anything, the long waiting period has strengthened the case against oil companies, with recent revelations bolstering the argument that they understood the science behind climate change but told the public something else. A study earlier this year found that Exxon’s internal scientists predicted climate change with startling accuracy 40 years ago by quantifying how their projections matched up with real-world temperature changes. In recent months, a congressional investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s role in misleading the public about climate change released hundreds of pages of subpoenaed documents. An internal email from a Shell employee in 2020, for example, said that the company’s public promotion of a path toward zeroing out its carbon emissions “has nothing to do with our business plans.”

And now that the court cases can finally proceed, more evidence is likely to be uncovered. The next major step before a trial is “discovery,” in which both sides try to uncover evidence that could help make their case in court. It could unearth new documents related to what oil companies learned from their in-house scientists and to what extent executives suppressed that information or misrepresented it publicly. Industry employees could also be called in to answer questions.

Photo of a protester holding a sign with Sean Hannity's head and the quote

A protester holds a photo of Sean Hannity, a Fox talk show host, along with a quote released in court documents outside of Fox News headquarters, Manhattan, New York, April 25, 2023. Photo by Erik McGregor / LightRocket via Getty Images

“The discovery system is quite powerful in terms of unveiling hidden information,” more powerful than some federal agencies, Sokol said. A lot of what the public learned about the tobacco industry’s effort to cover up the link between lung cancer and smoking, for example, came out of the discovery process. Tobacco companies paid hundreds of billions of dollars in settlements.

It’s not a guarantee that the public will be able to see these documents or transcripts from witnesses in the climate cases, however. The industry might argue that the information is a “trade secret,” Wiles said. Judges get to decide what evidence gets released.

Documents might come out in a slow drip, with lawyers attaching them to their arguments as supporting evidence, Wiles said, but there’s a chance they could be released all at once. In the recent Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit accusing Fox News of defamation, for instance, the judge released hundreds of pages of documents in the public interest, showing that the media company’s staff privately derided conspiracy theories about the 2020 election while promoting them on air. If oil companies decide to settle the consumer protection cases before going to trial, one stipulation might be that documents be made public, as was required by settlements for tobacco and opioid lawsuits.

The discovery process could take a while — and there are still plenty of ways oil companies could draw these cases out — but eventually, they could wind up in front of juries, where oil companies will have to defend a well-documented trail of deception in front of real people. And with these cases all unfolding in different state courts, the industry will have to fight each battle separately. “We only have to win in a couple to really get somewhere,” Wiles said, referring to the cities and states suing oil companies. “They basically have to win everywhere.”


Note: This article have been indexed to our site. We do not claim legitimacy, ownership or copyright of any of the content above. To see the article at original source Click Here

Related Posts
An effective MASH drug is good, but biotech can make it better thumbnail

An effective MASH drug is good, but biotech can make it better

Understanding this complex disease requires better model systems and large-scale data. The US Food and Drug Administration recently approved Madrigal Pharmaceuticals’ Rezdiffra (resmetirom) for the treatment of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) in adults. The new drug is a groundbreaking win for a disease with no previous therapy. MASH, previously known as noncirrhotic non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)
Read More
DeeperBlue Photo Of The Year 2021 thumbnail

DeeperBlue Photo Of The Year 2021

The DeeperBlue.com team has been hard at work looking through all the fantastic entries we had for our Photo Of The Week series and have picked a favorite to win the coveted DeeperBlue.com Photo Of The Year 2021. Throughout the year we get thousands of photos submitted to be showcased as part of our socials…
Read More
Domestic flights are also equipped with personal monitors and power supplies Special feature ・ New specification guest rooms for JAL / ANA domestic flights thumbnail

Domestic flights are also equipped with personal monitors and power supplies Special feature ・ New specification guest rooms for JAL / ANA domestic flights

 新型コロナウイルス感染症(COVID-19)の影響で大きく落ち込んだ国内線の旅客需要は、年末年始にはコロナ前の2019年比で9割程度まで回復した。一方で、オミクロン株の影響が懸念され、2021年度末に向けては回復のペースが落ち込む可能性が出てきた。 ANAの787-9国内線新仕様機のプレミアムクラス=21年12月 PHOTO: Tadayuki YOSHIKAWA/Aviation Wire  全日本空輸(ANA/NH)と日本航空(JAL/JL、9201)の大手2社は、国内線機材の客室仕様を当初は2020年夏に開催予定だった東京オリンピック・パラリンピックを念頭に、2019年から大きく刷新している。コロナの影響で計画が後ろ倒しになったものの、ANAもボーイング787型機就航10周年となった2021年には787-9の新仕様機を就航させ、オリンピック前に両社が計画していた主力機は出揃った。  ANAやJALなどFSC(フルサービス航空会社)の旅客需要の本格的な回復は、国際線が戻る2024年ごろと見られているが、国内線は一進一退を繰り返しながらも徐々に戻っていくとみられる。両社の国内線機材の今をまとめた。 —記事の概要— ・個人用モニターや電源完備 ・ファースト/プレミアム ・クラスJ ・普通席 個人用モニターや電源完備  両社とも新しいコンセプトの客室を導入したのは2019年。JALがエアバスA350-900型機を9月1日、ボーイング787-8型機を冬ダイヤ初日の10月27日に投入した。ANAはボーイング777-200ER型機を11月16日に、787-9は2年後の2021年12月9日に就航させた。 JALのA350-900の国内線ファーストクラス=PHOTO: Tadayuki YOSHIKAWA/Aviation Wire  JALはA350と787で、ANAは777と787で同じタイプのシートを採用。ANAは導入時期の違いで普通席のモニターが787のほうが大型化しているが、基本的な仕様は同じだ。いずれも全席に個人用モニターや電源コンセント、充電用USB端子を備え、Wi-Fiによる機内インターネット接続サービスを提供している。  座席数は、JALのA350は標準のX11仕様が3クラス369席で、ファーストクラスが12席(2-2-2席配列)、クラスJが94席(2-4-2席)、普通席が263席(3-3-3席)。繁忙期などを念頭に普通席を増やしたX12仕様は3クラス391席で、ファーストクラス12席、クラスJ 56席、普通席323席と、JALの国内線機材ではもっとも座席数が多い。  JAL初の国内線用787となった787-8のE21仕様は3クラス291席で、ファーストクラスが6席(2-2-2席)、クラスJが58席(2-3-2席)、普通席が227席(3-3-3席)。シートの基本仕様は、A350のものを踏襲し、ファーストが2-2-2席配列の1列6席、クラスJが2-3-2席配列の1列7席、普通席が3-3-3席配列の1列9席となった。 JALのA350-900 X11仕様(同社サイトから) JALのA350-900 X12仕様(同社サイトから) JALの787-8 E21仕様(同社サイトから)  ANAの777-200ER新仕様機は座席仕様(コンフィグ)が「722」と呼ばれ、座席数は2クラス392席。プレミアムクラス28席(2-3-2席)と普通席364席(3-4-3席)で、プレミアムが7席増えて普通席が20席減った。ANAの777は長距離国際線用の777-300ERを除き、日米でファンブレードに不具合が起きた米プラット&ホイットニー製エンジンPW4000を搭載している関係で、現在は運航から外れている。  ANAの787-9国内線新仕様機「78G」は、同社の787では初めて米GE製エンジンを搭載。座席数は2クラス375席で、プレミアムクラス28席(2-2-2席)、普通席が347席(3-3-3席)とプレミアムクラスが10席増えた。ANAの777-200ER 722仕様(同社サイトから) ANAの787-9 78G仕様(同社サイトから) ファースト/プレミアム  JALのファーストクラスは、日本の航空機内装品メーカーのジャムコ(7408)と共同開発。15.6インチの個人用モニターや大型テーブルを備える。座席は電動で操作でき、振動式のマッサージ機能も導入。大型シェルと隣席とのディバイダー(間仕切り)により、個室空間を目指した。  A350と787とも1列当たりの座席数は2-2-2席の計6席。シートピッチは53インチ(約135センチ)で、座席幅は約51センチとなる。客室は「日本の伝統美」を表現したデザインを採用し、手荷物収納棚(オーバーヘッドビン)は大型のものを備えた。 JALのA350-900の国内線ファーストクラス=PHOTO: Tadayuki YOSHIKAWA/Aviation Wire JALの787-8の国内線ファーストクラス=PHOTO: Tadayuki YOSHIKAWA/Aviation Wire 15.6インチモニターを採用したJALのA350-900国内線ファーストクラス=PHOTO: Tadayuki YOSHIKAWA/Aviation Wire JALのA350-900国内線ファーストクラスの大型テーブル=PHOTO: Tadayuki YOSHIKAWA/Aviation Wire  ANAのプレミアムクラスは、サフラン・シート・US(旧ゾディアック・シート・US)製シートを採用。表面を現行の革張りから布地に変更することで、滑りにくくした。個人用モニターは15.6インチで、大型テーブルはノートパソコンや機内食のトレーを置いたまま離席できるよう、90度回転する機構を採用した。座席間には固定式大型ディバイダー(間仕切り)を設置し、プライバシーを確保している。  1列当たりの座席数は、777が2-3-2席の計7席、787が2-2-2席の計6席。座席幅はクラス最大となる56センチで、777の3人掛け中央のみ52センチとなる。777と787は座席数を除き同じシートで、国際線用777-300ERの新仕様機と連続性のあるデザインコンセプトを取り入れており、照明がLEDの787はよりモダンな客室に感じる。ANAの777-200ER国内線新仕様機のプレミアムクラス=PHOTO:…
Read More
Drought might not be the driver behind disruption of Maya society thumbnail

Drought might not be the driver behind disruption of Maya society

Various studies suggested that the disruption of Classic Maya society in the Yucatan Peninsula of southeastern Mexico and northern Central America at the end of the ninth century coincided with extended droughts. Although climate change cannot fully account for the multifaceted, political turmoil of the period, it is clear that droughts of strong magnitude could…
Read More
Index Of News
Total
0
Share