The Climate Docket

You are here: Home / Archives for Latest News

Big Oil: Ninth Circuit Should Rethink Decision to Green-Light Oakland, SF Climate Suit

Filed Under: California Climate Lawsuits, Latest News, Liability Litigation

By Karen Savage

Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, and ConocoPhillips have asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision to resuscitate climate lawsuits filed against them by Oakland and San Francisco.

The oil giants say a three-judge panel “overlooked or misapprehended several key issues” relevant to its arguments and “decided them in a manner that conflicts” with its own previous rulings and those of other circuit courts. 

“This case should be reheard by the panel or en banc and the district court’s judgment affirmed,” Chevron attorney Ted Boutous wrote in a petition submitted to the court on Wednesday. 

Both rehearings (by the same panel of judges) and en banc hearings (by a larger group of the circuit’s judges) are granted only in exceptional circumstances, such as potential errors of law made by the panel or to address the impact of more recent Supreme Court decisions.

Oakland and San Francisco filed suit in California state court against BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell in 2017, alleging that the companies’ production and marketing of fossil fuels violated public nuisance laws because the companies knew the products’ detrimental effect on the climate and sold them anyway.

The cases were moved to federal court by the companies and later dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup. 

The three-judge panel reversed Alsup’s decision in May. Because the lower court had initially ruled on only one of the fossil fuel defendants’ several arguments for leaving the cases in federal court, the panel returned the case to district court, instructing Alsup to evaluate those arguments.

An en banc hearing must be approved by a majority of the Ninth Circuit’s 29 judges. If approved, a panel of 11 judges would then review the ruling. 

Baltimore Says Supreme Court Should Ignore Fossil Fuel Companies’ Appeal

Filed Under: Baltimore Lawsuit, Latest News, Liability Litigation

The U.S. Supreme Court should reject a request by fossil fuel companies to review an appellate court ruling that Baltimore’s climate liability suit against them belongs in state court, according to a brief filed by the city.

Baltimore, which filed its brief Monday with the high court, argued the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was correct to reject the companies’ argument that the case belongs in federal court under the Federal Officer Removal Statute and was correct to decline to review the oil giants’ other arguments.

Like dozens of climate-related lawsuits filed across the country, the question of jurisdiction—whether the suit will proceed in federal or state court—has been hotly contested. 

Baltimore wants the case against Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and more than a dozen other companies, to be heard in state court, where it was filed in 2018 alleging violations of state law. The fossil fuel companies want the case to be heard in federal court, where previous climate-related cases have been decided largely in the industry’s favor.

[Read more…]

House Committee Climate Plan: No Liability Waivers for Oil Industry

Filed Under: Access to Courts, Latest News, Liability Waivers

By Karen Savage

Fossil fuel companies should not be let off the hook for their role in climate change, according to a plan to address the growing climate crisis proposed by House Democrats.

The plan, released Tuesday by the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, is intended to “reduce carbon pollution as quickly and aggressively as possible, make communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change, and build a durable and equitable clean energy economy.”

Included is the recommendation that Congress put a price on carbon, but the committee did not specify what that price should be.

In recent weeks, some have worried that the plan would allow the fossil fuel companies to escape climate liability lawsuits in exchange for supporting carbon pricing.

The committee not only refused to do that, but included specific language clarifying that it does not support waiving liability: “Congress should not offer liability relief or nullify Clean Air Act authorities or other existing statutory duties to cut pollution in exchange for a carbon price.”

The plan is the latest in a series of Democratic announcements indicating support for climate change-related lawsuits. Sixty representatives opposed using the Covid-19 crisis to shield fossil fuel companies from climate change-related lawsuits in a letter sent to House leadership last month.  Presidential hopeful Joe Biden pledged earlier this month that his administration will “hold corporations and executives personally liable for pollution.”