Category: Press Releases

AG Karl Racine Files Consumer Protection Lawsuit Against Exxon, BP, Chevron, and Shell One Day After Minnesota AG Filed Consumer Protection Case Against Exxon & Koch Industries

WASHINGTON, D.C. – District of Columbia Attorney General Karl A. Racine today filed a consumer protection lawsuit against four of the world’s biggest oil companies — Exxon, BP, Chevron, and Shell — for knowingly concealing the role their products play in causing climate change harm.

The D.C. lawsuit comes one day after Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a similar consumer fraud lawsuit against Exxon, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute. A consumer protection suit filed against Exxon by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey last year is now proceeding in state court.

“Two new lawsuits filed against Big Oil in two days shows the strength and momentum of legal efforts to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for lying about climate change,” said Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity. “It has been a very bad week for corporate polluters and climate deniers, and a very good week in the fight to hold Big Oil accountable for its lies and deception. We applaud Attorney General Racine for bringing this case. The residents of D.C. deserve their day in court.” 

“The District of Columbia today stood up to mega polluters like ExxonMobil who have harmed vulnerable DC residents for decades,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “The heatwaves are bigger and the flooding from the Potomac is greater. The lawsuit filed today accurately asserts that these fossil fuel companies misled consumers about the harm of their products and the impacts of climate change. Now legal justice and compensation must flow to the Capital’s injured residents.”

A copy of the D.C. lawsuit is available here  https://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/DC-v-Exxon-BP-Chevron-Shell-Filed-Complaint.pdf

This is the second consumer protection action filed in D.C. against Exxon in recent months. In May, the non-profit group Beyond Pesticides filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Exxon that asked the D.C. Superior Court to order the oil giant to cease its “false and deceptive marketing” about its role in climate change.

Background on Climate Accountability Lawsuits:

The consumer protection lawsuits filed by Massachusetts, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia are among a growing number of cases that seek to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate change deception. Since 2017, more than a dozen city and county governments in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, and Washington have brought lawsuits under different claims to recover billions of dollars damages caused by the oil and gas industry’s deception about climate change. Learn about those other cases here.

Contact: Mike Meno, Center for Climate Integrity, mike@climateintegrity.org or 919-307-6637
Mike Tidwell, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, mtidwell@chesapeakeclimate.org or 240-460-5838

The Center for Climate Integrity, a project of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, launched in 2017 to educate the public and policymakers about the massive costs of coping with the damage attributable to global warming and to support efforts to make climate polluters pay their fair share.

For more information on what ExxonMobil and others in the industry knew about climate change and when, check out the Center for Climate Integrity’s “Smoking Guns” document archive or visit PayUpClimatePolluters.org.

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Under the cover of Covid, EPA is putting thousands of lives at risk 

For Immediate Release – June 19, 2020

Contacts: 
Siham Zniber, Press Secretary, | szniber@earthjustice.org
Neil Gormley, Earthjustice attorney, | ngormley@earthjustice.org | 202.797.5239
James Pew, Earthjustice attorney, | jpew@earthjustice.org  | 202.745.5214
Brian Willis, Sierra Club, Brian.Willis@sierraclub.org
Lisa Caruso, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, lcaruso@cbf.org | 202.746.2504
Katie Edwards, Clean Air Council kedwards@cleanair.org

Washington, D.C. – Today, civil rights and environmental organizations represented by Earthjustice sued Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency for gutting the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which regulate toxic emissions from coal- and oil-burning power plants. Since MATS took effect in 2015, it has reduced mercury and other air pollutants, which are linked to brain poisoning, breathing illnesses, heart disease, and cancer, among other health impacts that particularly affect children and communities of color. MATS is estimated to save as many as 11,000 lives each year. 

Despite unusually widespread opposition, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler – a former coal lobbyist – reversed the legal finding that it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate power plants’ hazardous emissions, based on a new cost benefit analysis that economists say has “deep flaws.” The move weakened the rule’s legal foundation and invited court challenges from industry groups hostile to these protections. Coal company Westmoreland Mining Holdings quickly took the opportunity that Wheeler handed to them and went after MATS in court last month. Earthjustice clients are also intervening in Westmoreland’s lawsuit to stop coal barons in their tracks.

 “Wheeler deceitfully created a bogus excuse for coal companies to challenge the MATS rule in court even though he knows the rule saves thousands of lives every year,” said Earthjustice attorney Neil Gormley. “If Wheeler’s giveaway to his former clients is successful, our children will be poisoned while we’re preoccupied with the pandemic. This corrupt attack on our communities is immoral and must be stopped.”

EPA’s own analysis underscores the public health benefits of air pollution regulations. Thanks to MATS mercury pollution has decreased by more than 81 percent.  

“It’s just common sense to protect the most vulnerable populations from the highly toxic air pollution emitted by coal-fired power plants. The technology to keep people safe is being used today and it is affordable. Eliminating these basic protections is simply unconscionable,” said Anne Hedges, Deputy Director of the Montana Environmental Information Center.

“The Trump administration is needlessly jeopardizing standards that have advanced Bay cleanup efforts and protected the region’s most vulnerable children for years. We cannot allow this cynical move to undermine critical health and environmental protections that power plants are already meeting. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is proud to return to court with partners we’ve fought alongside since 2005 to make sure that does not happen,”said Chesapeake Bay Foundation Staff Attorney Ariel Solaski.

“Given Andrew Wheeler’s long history as a coal lobbyist, it’s no surprise  that his intent was to weaken the mercury standards and practically invite a coal company to then sue in court challenging the now-compromised rule,” said Mary Anne Hitt, Director of Campaigns at the Sierra Club. “ We will continue to defend these life-saving standards and defeat Wheeler’s continuing attempts to fudge numbers in order to justify throwing out other clean air and water safeguards.”

“The Trump Administration’s efforts to gut clean air protections during a crisis of public health and justice is unconscionable,” said Anne Havemann, General Counsel at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “This is an issue of environmental justice. Communities with higher air pollution rates face higher death rates from COVID-19, and Black and brown residents of this country are dying from the virus at three times the rate of white Americans. Now is the time to increase protections, not gut them.”

“Pennsylvania’s coal plants are uniformly located in areas where at least 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, as seen here, qualifying them as Environmental Justice Areas. This completely unnecessary and dangerous rollback of public health standards would directly harm our most vulnerable populations,” said Joseph Otis Minott, Executive Director and Chief Counsel of Clean Air Council.

Earthjustice filed this lawsuit on behalf of Air Alliance Houston, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Clean Air Council, Downwinders at Risk, Montana Environmental Information Center, and NAACP.

Read this Earthjustice report for more on the history and benefits of MATS. 

A copy of the filing can be found here.

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Allies Send EPA a Notice of Intent to Sue over Agency’s Failure to Update Inadequate 34-Year-Old Standards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, June 11, 2020

Media contact: Tom Pelton, Environmental Integrity Project (443) 510-2574 or tpelton@environmentalintegrity.org

Washington, D.C. – A coalition of ten environmental organizations today sent the Trump Administration EPA a notice of intent to sue the agency over its failure to reduce toxic air pollution from the flares on petrochemical plants, gas processing facilities, and other industrial sites.

Across the country, thousands of industrial flares burn excess waste gases and release smog-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carcinogenic benzene, and other pollutants that threaten the health of people living nearby, often minorities and communities with moderate incomes.

EPA has not updated the air pollution control standards for industrial flares in 34 years, even though the federal Clean Air Act requires that agency review them at least once every eight years to make sure they adequately protect the public and incorporate improvements in technology, according to the notice.

“At this time when people are more vulnerable to pneumonia from COVID-19 when they are exposed to air pollution, it is unconscionable that the Trump EPA has not done its job and updated these weak and antiquated standards,” said Adam Kron, Senior Attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).

Joseph Otis Minott, Esq., Executive Director and Chief Counsel of Clean Air Council, said: “The outdated technology EPA is allowing polluters to use to reduce emissions is endangering our communities. Thirty-four years of inaction is unacceptable; EPA needs to do its job and update its regulations.”

The organizations that sent the notice – the first required step in a federal lawsuit – are EIP, Clean Air Council, Air Alliance Houston, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Earthworks, Environment America, Environment Texas, Hoosier Environmental Council, PennEnvironment, and Texas Campaign for the Environment. 

Industrial facilities, like chemical manufacturers and natural gas processing plants, use flares as pollution control devices to burn and destroy dangerous organic compounds like benzene in waste gases. However, the flares are only effective as pollution control devices if they are operated correctly.

For example, operators inject steam into flares to keep them from smoking (which releases soot or fine particle pollution). But they often add far more steam than is needed.  EPA and industry studies have shown that flares that are over-steamed do not burn well, releasing large amounts of benzene and other toxic or smog-forming compounds that should have been destroyed during the combustion process. 

The types of industrial flares that are the subject of the today’s notice do not include flares on drilling sites or oil refineries. The general industrial flares being targeted for the improvements in the notice include those on chemical factories, solid waste landfills, gasoline terminals, and natural gas processing plants.

More than three decades after EPA established requirements for these general industrial flares in 1986, these standards no longer reflect the “best system of emission reduction,” according to the notice filed by the 10 environmental organizations.

For example, the current standards’ minimum heating value requirements are not based on where the flare is actually burning (the “combustion zone”) and therefore miss if an operator is injecting too much steam or air into the flare, dramatically lowering its efficiency.  Additionally, the current standards let operators average their measurements over long, three-hour periods rather than a shorter time, allowing for spikes that depart from proper operation.  In fact, EPA has estimated that improperly operated flares may release five times or more the pollution as a properly operated flare.

Recently, EPA conducted a rulemaking that not only pointed out the shortcomings of the current flare standards but also set out specific revisions that could correct these problems. In March 2020, EPA finalized revisions to National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) standards for ethylene production facilities that included revised flare standards similar to what the groups have requested here.  For just the approximately 100 flares covered by the rule, EPA estimated that revised flare standards have the potential to reduce excess emissions by approximately 1,430 tons per year of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and 13,020 tons per year of VOCs. On a per-flare basis, that’s about 14 tons per year of hazardous pollutants and 130 tons per year of VOCs.

Quotes from Environmental Organizations:

Environment Texas: “In our Clean Air Act lawsuit against ExxonMobil, an expert on industrial flares testified at trial that illegal flaring emissions from the company’s Baytown petrochemical complex were probably three to four times higher than the amounts ExxonMobil reported — and that testimony went completely unrebutted,” said Luke Metzger, Executive Director of Environment Texas.  “These hidden impacts on surrounding communities are significant, as the reported violations alone already totaled 10 million pounds of harmful chemicals.”

In Texas, three of the top five largest unpermitted pollution releases from industrial flares in 2019 happened at the Exxon Mobil Chemical Baytown Olefins Plant east of Houston, which released 48 tons of air pollution from February 28 to March 12, 2019; 75 tons of air pollution from June 28 to July 13, 2019; and another 67 tons from August 1 to August 18, 2019, according to records of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Environment Texas sued Exxon Mobil over the plant’s air pollution.

PennEnvironment: “While many people may look back fondly and love the 80s, we’d all agree that technology and the things we know about air pollution have dramatically improved over the past three decades,” said PennEnvironment Executive Director David Masur. “Health based standards from the 80s are in no way acceptable for protecting public health, our communities and our environment today.”  

Chesapeake Climate Action Network: “For too long, fossil fuel companies have been allowed to emit dangerous levels of pollution at industrial facilities that are all too often located in minority communities,” said Anne Havemann, General Counsel at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “Virtually unchecked industrial flaring at these facilities harms the climate, health, and justice, and the EPA must fix its illegally outdated rules as soon as possible.”

Hoosier Environmental Council:  “With a ranking of 43rd in air quality, 40th in health outcomes, and 13th in COVID-19 deaths per capita, there is a great urgency in Indiana to strengthen air quality protections to reduce harm to an already vulnerable population,” said Jesse Kharbanda, Executive Director of the Hoosier Environmental Council. “We urge the EPA to revise the badly out-of-date flare standards; revisions would improve air quality in at least five of six regions of Indiana.”

Texas Campaign for the Environment:  “Industrial flares light up the skies with toxic pollution near the homes, schools and workplaces of many Texans,” said Robin Schneider, Executive Director of Texas Campaign for the Environment. “People rightly fear for the health of their families and neighbors, particularly overburdened communities of color,” said Robin Schneider, Executive Director of Texas Campaign for the Environment.

For a copy of the notice, click here.

The Environmental Integrity Project is an 18-year-old nonprofit organization, based in Washington D.C. and Austin, Texas, that is dedicated to enforcing environmental laws and strengthening policy to protect public health.

Clean Air Council is a member-supported environmental organization dedicated to protecting and defending everyone’s right to a healthy environment.

Environment Texas is a non-profit advocate for clean air, clean water, and open space.

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) is the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

PennEnvironment is a statewide, citizen-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group working for clean air, clean water, tackling climate change and preserving Pennsylvania’s incredible outdoor places.

Texas Campaign for the Environment is a grassroots organization that empowers Texans to fight pollution through sustained grassroots organizing campaigns that shift corporate and governmental policy.

Environment America is a national network of 29 state environmental groups that work for clean air, clean water, clean energy, wildlife and open spaces, and a livable climate.

Air Alliance Houston is a non-profit advocacy organization working to reduce the public health impacts of air pollution and advance environmental justice.

The Hoosier Environmental is Indiana’s largest environmental public policy organization, working to address environmental justice, protect land and water, and advance a sustainable economy.

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Governor Northam Appoints First Black Person to Serve on Virginia State Corporation Commission

RICHMOND, VA — Today, Governor Northam appointed Jehmal Hudson to serve as the next judge on the Virginia State Corporation Commission – the first Black person to hold a position on this regulatory body since its inception in 1902.

Harrison Wallace, Virginia Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, stated in response: 

“Now that a 100 percent clean energy future is a codified goal of the Commonwealth, it is more important than ever that we have SCC commissioners who understand the benefits of clean energy to both the ratepayers and our climate. Just as importantly, we also need commissioners who can relate to the experience of Black and Brown communities that have been disproportionately harmed by Virginia’s energy monopolies, something the body has lacked for all of its 118 year history. 

“We applaud Governor Northam for choosing Jehmal Hudson as SCC commissioner, where he can begin the long-needed shift towards a clean energy future that we all can be proud of. This historic shift to Virginia’s regulatory body is good news for climate and justice in Virginia.”

CONTACT:
Denise Robbins, Communications Director, 240-630-1889, denise@chesapeakeclimate.org
Harrison Wallace, Virginia Director, harrison@chesapeakeclimate.org 

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The Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. For 17 years, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Hogan-appointed commission can legally speed up approval of clean energy projects, creating thousands of jobs. Voters in poll conducted by Patrick Gonzales support faster action. Biggest support comes from Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore.

TAKOMA PARK, MD – With over half a million Marylanders newly out of work due to COVID-19, a new poll shows that voters want the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) to move faster in approving solar farms and wind farms. Over 40 solar projects are currently held up on regulatory wait lists — as are three wind farms on either end of the state. A new Gonzales Poll shows the public wants a change, with nearly two-thirds of both Democrats and Republicans saying the PSC should move faster.

The poll arrives at a pivotal moment for the PSC. Its five commissioners, appointed by Republican Governor Larry Hogan, reopened hearings last week related to two offshore wind farms. The commission will also vote on Wednesday of this week on a long-delayed wind farm in Allegany County in Western Maryland. Meanwhile, 40 solar projects proposed for the state are in various stages of “shovel readiness” but are tied up in PSC red tape with help from another government agency called the Power Plant Research Project.

“In an era marked by political division, this new poll shows incredible bipartisan consensus that the Maryland PSC should act faster for workers and clean air,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the group that commissioned the survey. “Perhaps never in Maryland’s history have government regulators been in a better position to help so many suffering families while protecting the planet.”

In the Gonzales poll, 64% percent of Maryland voters surveyed said the PSC should move faster in approving wind and solar generation projects in the state. The numbers were highest in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore, the two majority-Republican parts of the state where many of the largest wind and solar projects are being proposed. In Western Maryland, 70%of voters say the PSC should act faster. On the Eastern Shore/Southern Maryland, the number was 73%. Clearly Republican voters are eager to see faster economic development and jobs from wind and solar power. Statewide, 63% of Republican voters said the PSC should move faster. Sixty-five percent of Democrats said the same as did 66% of independents.

For more background on the PSC’s slowness in approving clean energy projects, read Mike Tidwell’s oped in the Washington Post from June 5.

Here is the Gonzales poll question: “450,000 Marylanders have filed for unemployment benefits with the Covid-19 shutdown. Meanwhile, over 40 solar energy farms have been proposed for construction in Maryland but are tied up in bureaucratic delays. It now takes one and half years to get a solar farm approved. Similar delays could affect a proposed land-based wind farm and two offshore projects. The Maryland Public Service Commission, which regulates these projects, can by law speed up this process and create thousands of jobs.  With the recession, do you think the Public Service Commission should act faster, or not?”

The Gonzales Research & Media Services firm surveyed 810 registered voters in Maryland between May 19 and May 23, 2020. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5%.

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The Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first and largest grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. For 17 years, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.chesapeakeclimate.org.

CONTACT:
Mike Tidwell, 240-460-5838, mtidwell@chespapeakeclimate.org
Denise Robbins, 608-320-6582, denise@chesapeakeclimate.org

CCAN-Report-May-2020

More than 4000 residents sign petitions; 78 groups sign on to full-page ad calling on Dominion shareholders to abandon controversial pipeline

RICHMOND, VA — Today, as Dominion Energy meets virtually for its annual shareholder meeting, an unprecedented coalition of advocacy organizations and Virginia residents have sent a message to shareholders and board members, calling on the utility monopoly to abandon its plans to build the highly controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). 

A coalition of 78 prominent advocacy organizations from Virginia and across the country signed onto a letter that will be displayed in a full-page Richmond Times-Dispatch ad and a half-page Washington Post ad on May 6, the day of Dominion Energy’s annual shareholder meeting. The ad, addressed to shareholders, states: “New legislation and legal challenges have rendered the completion of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline unrealistic.” The letter points to the pipeline’s $8 billion price tag, eight missing permits necessary for construction, and the fact that Dominion recently informed state regulators that “significant build-out of natural gas generation facilities is not currently viable” under the state’s new law requiring Dominion to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045. 

A law signed last month by Governor Northam, HB 167, significantly raises the threshold for Dominion to pass any of the cost of the ACP onto ratepayers. In order to recover costs from Virginians as planned, Dominion must now prove a need for the energy the pipeline would supply in Virginia and that the pipeline was the lowest-cost way to produce that energy.

Additionally, two petitions garnering nearly 4,000 signatures were delivered to Dominion executives and shareholders today. With one petition, over 2200 Virginia residents called on Dominion CEO Tom Farrell to walk away from the pipeline “for the financial health of the company.” Another petition gathered over 1800 signatures to tell Dominion shareholders that the pipeline “no longer makes economic sense, even based on Dominion Energy’s own logic,” and that “continuing to pursue this project is fiscally irresponsible.” 

VIEW FULL AD HERE AND PETITIONS HERE AND HERE

“Dominion Energy’s stubborn push to continue building the Atlantic Coast Pipeline despite ballooning costs, legal and permitting challenges, and a seismic shift in Virginia’s energy landscape betrays its duty to shareholders,” said Brennan Gilmore, Executive Director of Clean Virginia. “The responsible thing — for Virginians and shareholders alike — is for Dominion to shutter the project before another tree is felled.”

“After the coronavirus, the last thing we need is another crisis at our doorstep,” said Harrison Wallace, Virginia Director at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “If built, the pipeline would be a disaster for both the economy and public health. And now that the economic case is stronger than ever, it’s time to end this dangerous project once and for all.”

“Our normal way of life because of the pandemic is not even close to returning. Factor this together with the economic uncertainties and the harmful impacts to the health and welfare of many elderly, low income and majority African Americans in the proposed compressor station neighborhood of  Union Hill, and you have something that is absolutely unjustified,” said Chad Oba, President Friends of Buckingham.

“Recent research shows that higher levels of air pollution increase the risk of death and hospitalization from COVID-19. Increasing toxic emissions takes us on the wrong path, placing Virginians at increased risk from the current pandemic as well as from other cardiovascular and respiratory diseases” Samantha Ahdoot, MD, Chair of Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action.

The letter to Dominion shareholders was signed by the following organizations: Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, Alliance for Affordable Energy, Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Appalachian Voices, Berks Gas Truth, Better Path Coalition, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Bold Alliance, Bold Iowa, Bridging The Gap In Virginia, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Center for Sustainable Economy, Charlottesville Democratic Socialists of America, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Clean Virginia, Climate Action Alliance of the Valley, Climate Disobedience Center, Climate Hawks Vote, Coalition for Smarter Growth, Divest RVA Earth Action Inc, Earthworks, ENOUGH is ENOUGH Preserve VA, Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions, First Alliance Consulting LLC, Food & Water Action, Friends of Buckingham, Friends of Nelson, Friends of the Earth, Green New Deal VA, Greenpeace USA, Hip Hop Caucus, Indigenous Environmental Network, Interfaith Alliance for Climate Justice, La ColectiVa, Lancaster Against Pipelines, League of Women Voters of Virginia, Lebanon Pipeline Awareness, Marcellus Outreach Butler, Mothers Out Front VA, Movement Rights, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (anti-nuclear), Oil Change International, Our Revolution Alexandria, Piedmont Environmental Council, Preserve Giles County, Property Rights and Pipeline Center, Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection, Reclaim Augusta, Richard Freeman Allan, Richmond For All, Rockbridge Area Conservation Council (RACC), Rockfish Valley Investments, LLC, Scenic Virginia, Stand.earth, Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, Sustainable Roanoke, Together We Will Henrico, United Parents Against Lead & Other Environmental Hazards (UPAL), Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action, Virginia Community Rights Network, Virginia Conservation Network, Virginia Democracy Forward (VADF), Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative, Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, Virginia Justice Democrats, Virginia League of Conservation Voters, Virginia Network for Democracy and Environmental Rights, Virginia Organizing, Wild Virginia, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, Yogaville Environmental Solutions, Shenandoah Riverkeeper, Center For Sustainable Communities, 350 Alexandria, 350 Fairfax, 350 Loudoun, 350.org

CONTACT:
Denise Robbins, Communications Director, CCAN denise@chesapeakeclimate.org, 240-630-1889
Cassady Craighill, Communications Director, Clean Virginia cassady@cleanvirginia.org, 828-817-3328

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60 Members Of Congress Reject Attempts to Use the COVID-19 as an Excuse to Shield Industry from Ongoing Lawsuits over Climate Change Damages

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last night, 60 Members of Congress sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to “categorically oppose any attempt to confer immunity on the fossil fuel industry or to limit its liability for the damages it causes to people or property.” 

VIEW THE LETTER IN FULL HERE 

The fossil fuel industry knowingly lied for half a century about the catastrophic damage their product would cause and now they are attempting to use the COVID-19 recovery to evade legal accountability for its wrongdoings. Members of Congress are making clear that the industry will have to pay for the damage it created. 

Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, stated, “We applaud Congressman Raskin and all the lawmakers who put their name on this letter. The fossil fuel industry needs to pay for the damage it knowingly caused. The attempt of these companies to exploit this pandemic and make taxpayers clean up their mess is immoral.”

Those costs are becoming increasingly concrete. Already more than a dozen city, county, and state governments across the country — including the cities of Baltimore and Honolulu; the counties of King, Washington, and Boulder, Colorado, and the state of Rhode Island — have sued fossil fuel companies in recent years to recover billions of dollars in damages resulting from climate change the companies knew their products would cause. Giving liability relief to the fossil fuel industry could keep those cases from having their day in court. 

The letter has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), 350.org, Earthjustice, Environmental Working Group, Greenpeace, Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), Food & Water Watch, Food & Water Action, Oxfam America, Union of Concerned Scientists, Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, VOICES (Victory over InFRACKstructure, Clean Energy Instead), Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network International (WECAN International), Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Climate Hawks Vote, Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, Center for Sustainable Economy, EarthRights International, Rachel Carson Council (RCC), Corporate Accountability, and the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development. 

The letter opposes liability relief for the fossil fuel under any circumstances, not just during the COVID-19 recovery. The final line reads, “Shielding carbon polluters from proper accountability is an irrelevant and dangerous distraction from the task at hand. It has no place in federal legislation—we think never, but especially not now.”

Contact: Mike Tidwell, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, mtidwell@chesapeakeclimate.org, 240-460-5838

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The Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the oldest and largest grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. For 17 years, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.