News & Analysis
July 13, 2023
Members of Congress are renewing calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and potentially prosecute major oil and gas companies for lying about their products’ role in the climate crisis.
During an online conversation about recent climate disasters, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) and Bernie Sanders (VT) pointed to Big Oil companies’ well-documented history of lying about the danger of fossil fuels — and said the time is ripe for the federal government to take polluters to court for the catastrophic harm they knowingly caused.
“These fossil fuel companies bear responsibility for what they have done. And it will be and should be the power of a court to compel them to do so,” said Ocasio-Cortez.
Whitehouse, a former state attorney general, said a federal lawsuit against Big Oil could mirror the DOJ’s successful efforts to hold Big Tobacco companies accountable. “I would love to see the Department of Justice bring exactly the kind of litigation that it won against the tobacco industry for lying about the dangers associated with its product,” he said.
"These fossil fuel companies bear responsibility for what they have done. And it will be and should be the power of a court to compel them to do so." ��
— Center for Climate Integrity (@climatecosts) July 13, 2023
Watch @RepAOC & @SenWhitehouse make the case for why @TheJusticeDept should take Big Oil to court for their climate lies. pic.twitter.com/1mmg8vEZaY
As Big Oil’s culpability in the climate crisis becomes more understood, the calls for accountability continue to grow. More than 40 states and communities have already filed their own climate accountability lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, and more could be on the way. In March, the DOJ filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of those communities’ efforts to advance lawsuits against Big Oil in state court.
“If the Biden DOJ would give an honest look at that kind of litigation against the lies of the fossil fuel industry, that could be a real turnaround,” Whitehouse said. “There’s lots of other litigation going on out there, but the DOJ is the big one, and I hope that they make the decision to at least give such a lawsuit an honest look.”
h/t Dana Drugmand, who first reported this story on climateinthecourts.com
