Maine sues oil giants over climate change

Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) this week announced a lawsuit against major oil companies and their top lobbying group, alleging they knowingly concealed the role of fossil fuels in climate change for decades.

Frey said Tuesday that defendants in the lawsuit include Exxon, Shell, Chevron, BP, Sunoco, and the American Petroleum Institute (API). In a nearly 200-page complaint, the state alleges the companies contributed to Maine’s financial liability by concealing knowledge of the link as far back as the 1960s.

“For over half a century, these companies chose to fuel profits instead of following their science to prevent what are now likely irreversible, catastrophic climate effects,” Frey said in a statement. “In so doing, they burdened the State and our citizens with the consequences of their greed and deception.”

The state said it is seeking a jury trial and damages compensating the state for both future mitigation efforts and the costs of earlier impacts.

Maine is the ninth state to sue to hold oil companies responsible for the effects of climate change, none of which have gone to trial. A separate coalition of Republican attorneys general has called on the Supreme Court to bar lawsuits from five of those states, arguing they rely on powers the states do not have.

The Pine Tree State has seen a number of extreme weather events in recent years in particular, with Sen. Susan Collins (R) saying at a Senate hearing last week that recent storms "took out about 50 percent of our fishing infrastructure in our state."

Internal communications within the industry indicate senior figures in the industry were aware of a link going back to the 1970s, including periods during which they publicly cast doubt on a correlation. API formed a carbon dioxide task force in the late 70s including representatives from Exxon, Mobil, Shell and Chevron’s predecessors, while a study published in the journal Science last year indicated that Exxon scientists made projections going back decades that closely track with the trajectory of climate change.

Shell and API pushed back on the attorney general’s claims in statements to The Hill.

“This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry and its workers is nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of taxpayer resources,” API Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ryan Meyers said in a statement. “Climate policy is for Congress to debate and decide, not a patchwork of courts.”

“We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change, but that smart policy from government and action from all sectors is the appropriate way to reach solutions and drive progress,” a Shell spokesperson told The Hill.

“Addressing climate change requires a coordinated federal and international policy response, not meritless state court litigation attacking essential energy production," Chevron counsel Ted Boutros said in a statement to The Hill. "Identical claims have been dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and state courts in Delaware and Maryland. As the Baltimore city circuit court recently held, ‘state law cannot provide a remedy to claims involving foreign emissions.’”

The Hill has reached out to BP and Sunoco for comment.

— Updated at 10:17 p.m.