March 25, 2024
Bucks County, Pennsylvania is the first community in Pennsylvania to file a lawsuit seeking to hold Big Oil companies accountable for lying about climate change.
The county is suing ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and the American Petroleum Institute to make them pay for the damages suffered by the county caused by their concerted efforts to lie to and mislead the public about the climate impacts of fossil fuel products. The lawsuit comes less than a year after seven people, including two young children, were killed in Bucks County during deadly flash floods.
The lawsuit received bipartisan support within the County Commision: “These companies have known since at least the 1950s that their ways of doing business were having calamitous effects on our planet, and rather than change what they were doing or raise the alarm, they lied to all of us,” said Republican Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo. “The taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for these companies and their greed.”