Momentum builds for climate accountability: two new consumer protection cases were filed in two days

It was a bad week for Big Oil. Two new cases were filed in two days: Minnesota AND the District of Columbia each filed a consumer protection lawsuit against the fossil fuel industry’s top dogs — Exxon, Koch Industries and the American Petroleum Institute (Minnesota) and Exxon, Shell, Chevron, and BP (D.C.).

Unlike the tort cases filed by municipalities in Colorado, California, and Hawaiʻi, the lawsuits brought by Minnesota and D.C. don't ask the defendants to pay for the costs of adaptation. Both cases solely focus on the deception and fraud these companies committed by lying to the public about climate change. Simply put, in Minnesota and D.C., it is illegal for companies to lie to consumers in connection with the sale of their products. This same legal theory has been most famously used in the tobacco and opioid cases.

Climate liability —  and specifically consumer protection — has the added benefit of being popular with voters. Our recent polling shows that when voters hear about the history of the fossil fuel industry’s deception, their support for suing oil companies increases by 8 points.

The importance of two major lawsuits like these — the first by a Midwestern state, the first by the nation’s capital — cannot be overstated. Big Oil can complain all they want — and they will, a lot — but there is no denying that the legal efforts to hold their industry accountable for decades of climate deception are stronger than ever.