DOJ backs communities suing Big Oil for climate lies

After two years of silence, the Department of Justice is finally supporting communities seeking to put Big Oil companies on trial for their climate deception and the damages they have caused.

The long-awaited move is a major development for climate accountability, ending the department’s Trump-era position backing oil companies in climate lawsuits and making good on a promise President Biden made on the campaign trail to “strategically support” those cases. 

In a U.S. Supreme Court brief filed March 16, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar urged the justices to reject a request from ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy to review lower court rulings that would allow lawsuits from three Colorado communities to proceed to trial in state court, where they were filed. 

Big Oil has fought relentlessly to prevent climate accountability cases from moving toward trial, but judges across the country have unanimously denied those efforts. The oil giants are now urging the Supreme Court to let them off the hook, often pointing to the DOJ’s Trump-era position. After the Supreme Court asked the Justice Department to weigh in on the matter, the DOJ found those lower court rulings were right.

Under the well-pleaded complaint rule, respondents’ claims do not present a federal question, and petitioners have identified no sound basis for recharacterizing those claims,”  the DOJ brief reads. 

The DOJ’s guidance could help dozens of cases across the country move forward, but the brief was specifically filed in support of three Colorado communities: Boulder and San Miguel counties, and the City of Boulder, who are suing Exxon and Suncor to make the companies help pay for the damages caused by climate change. Since those communities filed suit, more than a thousand homes in Boulder County burned to the ground and caused upwards of $2 billion in damages in the most destructive wildfire in Colorado state history.

The devastating impacts of the climate crisis are not a distant possibility; we are already experiencing them in the communities we call home,” said Boulder County Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann. 

Communities in Colorado and across the U.S. have waited long enough for justice. It’s time for Big Oil companies to face the evidence of their climate lies and face trials in state court.

Image from State Farm via Flickr