News & Analysis
March 26, 2024
Bucks County became the first community in Pennsylvania this week to sue oil companies for their climate deception and destruction, joining a wave of communities across the nation demanding that the fossil fuel industry is held accountable for its climate lies.
The county is arguing that ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and the American Petroleum Institute knowingly lied to the public about their products’ key role in climate change, ultimately delaying action the local government could have taken to protect its community from climate harms.
“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 Bucks County Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo, a Republican. “The taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for these companies and their greed.”
According to the county, the region has suffered three 100-year storms in the span of three years — climate induced disasters that the region didn’t have time to prepare for because of the fossil fuel inustry’s lies about the reality of climate change. In July 2023, the county experienced severe flash flooding that killed seven people, including two children.
Bucks County is the most recent in a string of communities that have sought to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its climate lies following devastating and deadly climate disasters. Multnomah County, Oregon, sued oil majors in the wake of the deadly 2021 heat dome which killed nearly 70 people. A lawsuit in Puerto Rico seeks to make oil majors pay for damages from Hurricane Maria. New Jersey sued ExxonMobil, Shell, and other oil companies on the 10 year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, citing the billions of dollars in damage the climate-fueled storm caused.
A study published last year by the Center for Climate Integrity, Resilient Analytics, and Scioto Analysis found that Pennsylvania municipalities faced at least $15 billion in costs to mitigate just eight climate change impacts by 2040. The study, “Pennsylvania's Looming Climate Cost Crisis: The Rising Price to Protect Communities from Extreme Heat, Precipitation, and Sea Level Rise,” also found that Bucks County faced $955 million to protect its community from a handful of the many climate harms it will face by 2040.
Image courtesy of Fox 29 Philadelphia
