News & Analysis
September 9, 2022
There is a wide range of climate actions the Biden administration should take after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, according to a new report, and those include steps to hold oil and gas giants accountable for their role in the climate crisis.
The new report from the Revolving Door Project calls on the U.S. Department of Justice to support states and municipalities bringing climate liability lawsuits against fossil fuel corporations, and to launch its own investigation into Big Oil’s corrupt activity.
“Filing motions to intervene, amicus briefs, and statements of interest are all tools at the Department of Justice’s disposal to lend strategic support to forward-looking climate lawsuits against fossil fuel corporations in state and district courts,” reads the report. “There is, however, an even more impressive option: the Department of Justice commencing its own investigations into the fossil fuel industry’s fraud, negligence, and violations of constitutional rights and the public trust doctrine.”
President Biden campaigned on a pledge to direct his attorney general to “strategically support ongoing plaintiff-driven climate litigation against polluters.” But despite pleas from local, state, and federal officials, his administration has yet to take any action fulfilling that pledge or even reversing the Trump administration’s support of Big Oil defendants in climate accountability lawsuits.
The report lambasts the Justice Department for its inaction:
"Attorney General Merrick Garland, and AAG Todd Kim of the ENRD, appear content to do little to meet this nation’s extraordinarily urgent need for climate change mitigation and adaptation and environmental justice. If they continue to squander the Department of Justice’s many tools to strategically support and advance climate-forward litigation across the country, they will join the ignominious ranks of powerful Americans who saw the existential stakes of climate change, held the tools to address it in their hands, and chose to do little about it.”
You can read the full report from the Revolving Door Project here.
