News & Analysis
October 1, 2025
Maine’s climate deception lawsuit against Big Oil companies can move forward in state court, a federal judge ruled this week, continuing an unbroken streak of courts rejecting Big Oil’s arguments for federal jurisdiction.
“Enough with the delays,” said Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, who filed the case in 2024. “Mainers deserve their day in court to hold the defendants accountable for the high costs of surviving the impacts of their deception.”
Maine’s lawsuit accuses ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and other major fossil fuel entities of failing to warn Mainers about the dangers of their products, and deceiving the public for decades about the reality of the climate crisis. The lawsuit seeks to make the Big Oil defendants pay for climate damages, stop engaging in deceptive practices, and give up the profits that they illegally obtained while lying to consumers about the dangers of their products, among other remedies.
Big Oil defendants had argued that Maine’s case should proceed in federal court because they falsely characterize the lawsuit as targeting emissions rather than deception. U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Torresen rejected the fossil fuel industry’s often repeated argument, finding it “at odds” with the relevant statutes and noting that Maine’s case is not about emissions, “but rather their acts of “deceiving consumers and the public about climate change.”
Torresen’s ruling aligns with dozens of judges before her, all of whom have rejected oil companies’ attempts to block climate accountability cases from moving forward in state court. Torresen noted that the oil defendants’ “highly skilled lawyers” have presented versions of the same argument to remove communities’ climate deception cases from state court in dozens of cases across the country, only to always receive the same rejection. Given the unchanging opinion of courts across the country, Torresen ruled that the fossil fuel defendants’ removal was improper and granted Maine the ability to recoup its legal costs fighting the removal from the oil defendants.
As climate accountability cases like Maine’s move closer to trial, the oil and gas industry is lobbying the Trump administration and Congress for sweeping legal protections that could deny communities their right to take the companies to court for climate harms. In June, 16 Republican attorneys general proposed creating a “liability shield” for fossil fuel companies modeled on a 2005 law protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits, and the New York Times recently confirmed that securing similar protections is a priority for the fossil fuel industry this Congress.
“As the fossil fuel industry lobbies for immunity from lawsuits like Maine’s, it’s exceedingly important for Congress to protect communities’ access to court and reject any and all attempts to hand fossil fuel companies a legal shield,” CCI President Richard Wiles said about the ruling.
