(AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
The Biden administration made it clear this week where it stands over the issue of local governments and their ability to sue oil companies over climate change, even as it prepares to turn things over to President-elect Trump. And it’s not with the oil and gas industry, the group that Joe Biden put in his sights when he took office as President nearly four years ago.
In the latest round fired by the White House against oil and gas, the Biden administration urged the Supreme Court to allow local governments to continue suing oil companies over the climate change issue. But Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond and 18 other state attorneys general are fighting to block the lawsuits.
The Biden administration’s position was known in a case where oil companies filed an appeal to the Supreme Court after they lost a lawsuit to the city of Honolulu, Hawaii, a suit where they were accused of violating state laws. According to a report by The Well News, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to back Hawaii.
Prelogar, in her brief stated “state law claims rested on the same theory of liability: that petitioners have known for decades that greenhouse gas emissions from the use of their fossil fuel products would contribute to climate change; that instead of warning consumers about those consequences, [the oil companies] engaged in deceptive marketing by concealing and mis-presenting the dangers of using their fossil fuel products.”
Click here for The Well News
