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Supreme Court Rejects Bid by API, Exxon, and Koch to Kill Climate Case

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Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

An oil and petroleum refinery is shown in St. Paul Park, Minnesota. (Photo: jferrer/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

“Big Oil companies will continue fighting to escape justice, but for the third time in a year, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied their desperate pleas,” said one campaigner.

For the third time in less than a year, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a key case against the fossil fuel industry to proceed in state court, delivering a win for the movement to make polluters pay for driving the climate emergency.

“This decision is another step forward for Minnesota’s efforts to hold fossil fuel giants accountable for their climate lies and the harm they’ve caused,” said Center for Climate Integrity president Richard Wiles, pointing to the previous denials of other cases last April and May.

“Big Oil companies will continue fighting to escape justice, but for the third time in a year, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied their desperate pleas to overturn the unanimous rulings of every single court to consider this issue,” he continued.

“It’s time for these polluters to give up their failed arguments to escape state courts.”

As legal leaders of dozens of U.S. states and municipalities have launched climate lawsuits in recent years, the fossil fuel industry has attempted to evade accountability by shifting the cases to federal court—a strategy that’s proven unsuccessful.

Wiles argued that “after three strikes, it’s time for these polluters to give up their failed arguments to escape state courts and prepare to face the evidence of their climate deception at trial.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Monday decision came in a case filed in 2020 by Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute (API), based on the state’s consumer protection laws.

“The fraud, deceptive advertising, and other violations of Minnesota state law and common law that the lawsuit shows they perpetrated have harmed Minnesotans’ health and our state’s environment, infrastructure, and economy,” Ellison said at the time.

The justices declined Big Oil’s request to review the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ March decision that the case belongs in state court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, an appointee of former GOP President Donald Trump, would have taken the case, in line with his position last year.

“I appreciate the court’s consideration and decision,” Ellison said in a statement Monday. “It aligns with 25 federal court decisions across the country, all of which have found that cases like ours rest on these defendants’ failures to warn and their campaigns of deception around their products’ contributions to the climate crisis. The court’s decision confirms these cases are properly filed in state courts.”

“Taken together, the defendants’ behavior has delayed the transition to alternative energy sources and a lower-carbon economy, resulting in dire impacts on Minnesota’s environment and enormous costs to Minnesotans and the world,” he stressed. “Now, the case can move forward in state court, where it was properly filed, and we can begin to hold these companies accountable for their wrongful conduct.”

Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for Fossil Free Media and the Make Polluters Pay campaign, declared Monday that “today’s decision is an important step forward for accountability and justice.”

“The Supreme Court has now laid out an unmistakable path forward,” she added, “for not only Minnesota’s consumer protection case against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and API, but the dozens of cases against the fossil fuel industry popping up across the county.”

This post has been updated with comment from Keith Ellison.

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingSupreme Court Rejects Bid by API, Exxon, and Koch to Kill Climate Case

US Billboard Campaign Blasts Fossil Fuel Giants for Causing Extreme Heat

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A billboard in Austin, Texas shows a U.S. map with high temperatures across the nation.
 (Photo: Fossil Free Media)

Original article by ULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“From Alaska to Maui, our communities are struggling to survive the rapidly worsening impacts of the climate crisis, all the while, Big Oil is raking in billions at our expense.”

As about 111 million people in nearly two dozen states continued to face heat advisories, with temperatures reaching as high at 115°F in some cities, the nonprofit media lab Fossil Free Media unveiled a multicity campaign with one simple goal: ensuring that all Americans understand that the intense heatwaves across much of the country this summer have not been a natural phenomenon, but the result of continued fossil fuel extraction.

Starting Thursday drivers along stretches of highway in Phoenix, Arizona; Austin, Texas; and Fresno, California will pass by prominent billboards displaying a map of record-breaking temperatures that have been recorded across the U.S. this summer.

Fresno drivers will be reminded of a 109°F day in their city while those in Phoenix will see 117°F plastered over their hometown on the map, accompanied by the words, “Brought to you by Big Oil” and ThankYouBigOil.com.

That website redirects to Fossil Free Media’s (FFM) Stop the Oil Profiteering (STOP) project, where visitors can read about the estimated cost of climate-related disasters such as hurricanes, extreme heat, and wildfires—over $600 billion from 2016-20 alone—and the 5,000 people killed by such events in that same time period.

“The fossil fuel industry has known for decades that their products are fueling climate change and extreme weather, yet they have failed to act,” reads the website. “Instead, major oil and gas companies continue to invest billions into new projects that lock in decades more fossil fuel extraction while our communities take the heat… literally.”

Jamie Henn, director of the organization, said on social media that the public “needs to understand that this summer’s brutal heatwave was brought to you by Big Oil.”

The World Weather Attribution said last month that the heatwaves experienced by people across the U.S. and Europe in July would have been “virtually impossible” without the climate crisis, which scientists have for years said is being fueled by heat-trapping emissions from oil, gas, and coal extraction.

The organization also reported this week that wildfires in eastern Canada in recent weeks were made twice as likely by the climate emergency, which as STOP said, has created “tinderbox conditions” by making droughts longer and more intense.

“From Alaska to Maui, our communities are struggling to survive the rapidly worsening impacts of the climate crisis, all the while, Big Oil is raking in billions at our expense,” said Cassidy DiPaola, spokesperson for FFM and STOP. “There’s no denying that this summer’s brutal heatwaves are being fueled by the same Big Oil companies who are spreading climate disinformation and blocking much needed climate progress.”

More than 100 people in the U.S. have died of heat-related causes so far this year, and weather experts have continued to report high temperatures throughout August after July set a world record for the hottest month in recorded history.

Jennifer Falcon, a resident of Austin, told FFM that the climate crisis has emerged as an economic justice issue in her community as Texas broke its all-time record for power consumption last month, with people across the state struggling to stay cool.

“Texans are paying 800% more to cool their homes during the extreme heat that blankets our state,” she said. “This means choosing between food on the table or cooling your home to mitigate health impacts from the sweltering heat while Big Oil profits.”

As millions of people in the U.S. faced sweltering temperatures this summer—raising the risk of heat-related illness and even severe contact burns—ExxonMobil reported $7.9 billion in profits, its second-highest profit margin for a second quarter in over a decade.

Along with the billboards, STOP unveiled an ad showcasing the Big Oil’s link to the climate extremes Americans are increasingly at risk of facing.

“Record heatwaves? You can thank Big Oil for that,” said STOP. “Deadly wildfires? Yep, that’s Big Oil. Catastrophic storms? Smog-covered cities? You guessed it—Big Oil.”

The group is one of several scheduled to lead a March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City on September 17, with the rally being held as the United Nations holds a Climate Ambition Summit.

Aimed at pressuring U.S. President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency, Fossil Free Media said the march is expected to be “the largest climate action since before the pandemic.”

Original article by ULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingUS Billboard Campaign Blasts Fossil Fuel Giants for Causing Extreme Heat