Press Releases
October 18, 2022
NEW JERSEY — In the latest lawsuit seeking to hold Big Oil companies accountable for their role in the climate crisis, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin today announced the filing of a state lawsuit against major oil and gas corporations — including ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute — for deceiving the public about the role of their fossil fuel products in climate change.
New Jersey is now the seventh and most populous state in the nation to sue Big Oil companies for climate deception since 2017. The attorney general of the District of Columbia and 20 municipalities across the U.S. — including Hoboken, New Jersey — have also filed similar climate accountability lawsuits.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously ruled that climate accountability lawsuits from Hoboken and Delaware could proceed in state court, where they were filed, joining four other federal appellate courts across the country in rejecting Big Oil’s efforts to escape trial in state court.
Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, released the following statement:
“After lying for decades about their role in fueling the climate crisis, these oil and gas corporations deserve to be held accountable for the damages they have caused to communities across the country.
“Thanks to New Jersey’s leaders, the wave of states and municipalities that are standing up to the fossil fuel industry and taking these polluters to court continues to grow. Big Oil’s days of escaping accountability are clearly numbered.”
Background:
Since 2017, the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, the District of Columbia — and now New Jersey — as well as 20 city and county governments in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Washington, have filed lawsuits to hold major oil and gas corporations accountable for deceiving the public about their products’ role in climate change.
In New Jersey, the League of Municipalities and 14 municipal governments have passed resolutions in support of statewide action to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its role in the climate crisis.
Five federal appeals courts — the First, Third, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth — have unanimously ruled that climate accountability lawsuits filed in state court can proceed there.
After a series of rulings, Massachusetts’s consumer fraud lawsuit against ExxonMobil, and Honolulu’s lawsuit against Exxon and other oil majors, are now positioned to be the first to head toward trial in state court.