News & Analysis
April 6, 2021
Six attorneys general are asking the U.S. Justice Department to reverse the positions it took during the Trump administration in support of ExxonMobil and other major oil and gas corporations in lawsuits the officials have filed to hold the corporations accountable for lying to the public about climate change.
In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, the chief law enforcement officers of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia say that the Justice Department’s Trump-era position, expressed through various amicus briefs, undermines legal efforts to hold those companies accountable for climate harms in their states and contradicts President Biden’s pledge to “strategically support ongoing plaintiff-driven climate litigation against polluters.”
“The urgency and importance of DOJ reversing these positions cannot be overstated,” reads the letter. “DOJ’s prior positions are misguided and contravene President Biden’s pledge to support lawsuits like the ones our states have filed [...]. Moreover, fossil fuel defendants continue to cite DOJ’s prior briefs as if they represent DOJ’s current positions.”
The letter is the latest in a growing number of demands for the Garland-led Justice Department to side with communities over climate polluters.
Last month, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison wrote an op-ed laying out three “simple but critically important steps” the Biden administration could take to uphold its pledge to support climate accountability lawsuits. Among them was to “stop supporting the fossil fuel industry defendants in their efforts to undermine or block those lawsuits and, to the extent feasible, reverse the positions that DOJ has already taken on behalf of fossil fuel companies.”
“Backing dishonest corporations at the expense of struggling communities is not a proper government function,” Ellison wrote.
During Garland’s confirmation hearing, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told Garland that “nothing could be so important” as the U.S. Department of Justice taking action to hold Exxon and other oil and gas companies accountable “for lying to the American public about the devastating effects of these products on climate change.”
And after Garland’s confirmation, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island wrote a letter urging the attorney general to investigate the fossil fuel industry’s history of climate deception. “The fossil fuel industry’s complex scheme to deny the dangers of its products’ use, using arrays of front groups, hidden flows of money, and cut-out organizations, may well be the Fraud of the Century,” he wrote.
