Minnesota takes Exxon, Koch, and the American Petroleum Institute to court for lying about climate change

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison today filed a major consumer fraud lawsuit on behalf of the State of Minnesota against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) for their leading role in misleading and deceiving consumers about climate change. 

This is the first lawsuit to target Koch Industries and API for their role in deceiving the public about climate change. In recent years, more than a dozen municipalities, counties, and states have filed either consumer protection or cost recovery lawsuits against Exxon and other fossil fuel companies over their well-documented history of climate change deception and denial and the resulting harms faced by communities. 

As our executive director Richard Wiles put it, “There are no more worthy targets of a climate fraud lawsuit than Exxon, Koch Industries, and API: the unholy trinity of climate denial. While these corporate polluters spread climate disinformation, Minnesota taxpayers got slammed with climate-driven disasters and the rising costs of dealing with them.” 

We applaud Attorney General Ellison for having the guts to hold these groups accountable for their decades of deception and disinformation. As attorney general of a state with strong consumer protection laws, Ellison has enforcement powers that may prove to be Exxon, Koch, and API’s worst nightmare. 

Minnesota is the first to sue Koch Industries and API for their decades of lying and deception on climate change. As others have documented, the Koch empire masterminded climate denial through the creation and funding of a vast network of front groups, political operatives, and scientists for hire.

Minnesota is also suing under the state’s consumer protection laws, as opposed to cases brought by more than a dozen municipalities and the state of Rhode Island to recover the costs of climate adaptation and resilience. Under Minnesota law, the state does not have to prove that any specific harm or damage resulted from the alleged fraud, only that the fraudulent activity occurred.

Among other remedies, the suit asks that the court order Exxon and Koch to disgorge all profits made as a result of their unlawful conduct and fund a re-education campaign of the public.

A similar consumer protection suit filed against Exxon by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey last year is now proceeding in state court.