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This story was originally published in the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration
US oil firms have been accused of using scare tactics after telling a federal court on Tuesday that lawsuits alleging fossil fuel companies lied about the climate crisis could threaten America’s oil supply.
At a closely watched appeals court hearing to decide whether a lawsuit by the city of Baltimore should be heard in state or federal court, an attorney for BP, Exxon, Shell other energy firms painted the case as a threat to America’s energy independence.
Kannon Shanmugam, representing industry, said that if the city was to win in state court and receive billions in compensation, it could end offshore drilling. “The relief that Baltimore seeks would deter, if not render entirely impractical, any further production on the outer continental shelf,” he said.
Karen Sokol, a law professor at Loyola University who specializes in climate litigation, called the claim one of a number of “sterile scare tactics” deployed by the oil industry as it fights to move the Baltimore and other cases out of state jurisdictions, where consumer protection and other laws favor the plaintiffs, and in to federal courts where the fossil fuel companies believe they have the advantage.
“It’s a scare tactic, which is telling the courts to back off, we’re a very powerful industry and we’re essential right now to energy security. If you step into this, you’re going to screw everything up,” she said.
Baltimore’s case accuses oil firms of breaching Maryland state consumer protection and other laws by running disinformation campaigns to cover up what they knew about the dangers of burning fossil fuels.
The outcome of Tuesday’s hearing will influence similar cases within the same federal jurisdiction, including a suit by Charleston, South Carolina. It could also impact on nearly a dozen lawsuits filed by municipalities or states in other jurisdictions. A similar case will be heard next month by the Hawaii federal appeals court.
Shanmugam informed the court that the case should come under federal jurisdiction as pollution is regulated by national laws and climate crisis is a national issue. Shanmugam also accused Baltimore, and other municipalities, of using the courts in an attempt to change climate policy.
“Global climate change is obviously the subject of international agreements, as well as pervasive regulation by the federal government,“ he said.
Vic Sher, representing Baltimore, said that the city’s case is not about the regulation of pollution but the lies told by the fossil fuel industry. “The goal of the complaint, sadly, cannot address global climate change. It’s focused very narrowly on a past pattern of conduct based on deception and failure to warn, and it seeks compensatory damages for injuries that flow from that past conduct,” he said.
Sokol said the judges appeared “very skeptical” about the basis of the oil industry’s claim that the Baltimore case belongs in federal court. She said the industry’s legal argument did not address the substance of the city’s claim that Big Oil ran a disinformation campaign and lied about the harm caused by its part in creating the climate crisis, and instead tried to put the focus on who regulates pollution.
Sokol stated that if the appeals court ruling against the oil industry is upheld, she expects the companies to try to return to the supreme courts as part of a strategy for delaying the Baltimore and other cases being heard before a jury.
“It will continue to fight this thing out in the procedural stage till hell freezes over, before it allows it to get to discovery, much less a trial, because it knows the civil discovery system of state courts is so powerful that it would be forced to discord documents that would shed light on the extent of this disinformation campaign even beyond what we already know.”
