Bucks County, PA, Sues Big Oil for Climate Deception

Bucks County is the first Pennsylvania community to take Big Oil to court; CCI study found PA municipalities face $15 billion in costs by 2040 to protect infrastructure from climate change

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Bucks County, Pennsylvania, today became the first community in Pennsylvania to file a lawsuit that seeks to hold Big Oil companies accountable for lying about climate change and make them pay for the resulting damage. The lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and the American Petroleum Institute comes less than a year after seven people were killed in Bucks County during deadly flash floods. 

Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, released the following statement: 

“By taking Big Oil companies to court for their climate lies, Bucks County joins a growing wave of communities that are demanding accountability and taking action to make polluters pay for a crisis these companies knowingly fueled and lied about for decades. 

“More than one in four people in the U.S. now live in a community suing major fossil fuel companies to make them pay for their climate deception. Bucks County is the first Pennsylvania government to file a climate accountability lawsuit against Big Oil companies, but it likely won’t be the last.” 

Study: Bucks County Faces $955 Million in Climate Adaptation Costs by 2040 

Last year, a study from the Center for Climate Integrity, Resilient Analytics, and Scioto Analysis calculated that municipalities across Pennsylvania face more than $15 billion in costs by 2040 to protect residents and infrastructure from eight different climate change impacts. 

“Pennsylvania's Looming Climate Cost Crisis: The Rising Price to Protect Communities from Extreme Heat, Precipitation, and Sea Level Rise” calculated that municipalities in Bucks County will have to spend more than $955 million to adapt their local infrastructure by 2040. 

Background on Climate Accountability Lawsuits Against Big Oil: 

Since 2017, the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia, as well as dozens of municipal governments in California, Colorado, Hawai`i, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, and Puerto Rico have filed lawsuits to hold major oil and gas companies accountable for deceiving the public about their products’ role in climate change. 

To date, eight federal appeals courts — including the Third Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania — and dozens of federal district courts have unanimously ruled against the fossil fuel industry’s arguments to prevent these lawsuits from moving forward in state courts. In 2023, the U.S. Justice Department added its support for the communities. The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Big Oil petitions to consider the industry’s appeals of those lower court rulings three separate times, most recently in January.