Puerto Rico drops climate lawsuit to align with the “protection of oil companies”

Less than a year after Puerto Rico filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Big Oil companies to make them pay for damages caused by their decades-long climate deception, the Commonwealth’s government quietly dropped its own case. A spokesperson later told a local news outlet that the decision was made in order to align with the Trump administration’s policies  “to support the burning of fossil fuels [and] the protection of oil companies."

Puerto Rico’s lawsuit sought to hold ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and other fossil fuel companies  accountable for lying about their products’ role in fueling the climate crisis that’s currently devastating the U.S. territory.

“[Fossil fuel companies] did not truthfully warn Puerto Rican consumers about the consequences of using and burning fossil fuels on the Island, as well as their impact on the environment,” then-Puerto Rico Secretary of Justice Domingo Emanuelli Hernández said in a translated press release when the case was filed. “It is time for them to mitigate the damage they have caused to Puerto Rico and for Puerto Ricans not to be the ones to pay the bill.”

The decision to drop the case came after a pro-fossil fuel advocacy group called on Governor Jenniffer González Colón — who was elected after the lawsuit was originally filed — to direct officials to withdraw the case. Days prior to the voluntary dismissal, the Trump administration filed “shockingly flimsy” lawsuits to prevent Hawaiʻi and Michigan from filing similar lawsuits against Big Oil. While officials in those states were undeterred by the intimidation tactic — Hawaiʻi responded by suing Big Oil — Hiram Torres Montalvo, Secretary of Public Affairs, told El Nuevo Dia that Puerto Rico decided to withdraw its lawsuit to align with the Trump administration’s efforts “to support the burning of fossil fuels, the protection of oil companies, and the return to fracking.” 

The dismissal will have no impact on other climate accountability lawsuits in Puerto Rico. Thirty-seven local municipalities are separately suing Big Oil companies in federal court, arguing that the industry’s coordinated climate deception violates racketeering and other laws and fueled the deadly Hurricane Maria in 2017. A federal magistrate judge recently recommended that the racketeering and antitrust claims against Big Oil should be allowed to advance toward trial.

“It is time for those who built this empire of deception to answer for their actions in a court of law,” an attorney for the municipalities said following that decision.