by Spencer Walrath
A federal judge in Boston dealt a major blow yesterday to environmental activist groups seeking to sue fossil fuel companies for supposedly ignoring the risks of climate change. The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) had sued ExxonMobil for allegedly failing to sufficiently prepare a facility in Everett, Mass., for the effects of climate change, including sea level rise and more frequent and severe storms. CLF is yet another Rockefeller bankrolled organization that is closely tied in with the #ExxonKnew campaign.
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf allowed ExxonMobil’s motion to dismiss to proceed, in part. Wolf repeatedly suggested that CLF was unnecessarily injecting climate change into its complaint, to the detriment of the group’s own argument. As Wolf saw it, the case is about whether ExxonMobil has violated the terms of its permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and he thus ordered CLF to refile its complaint with the references to climate change removed.
Wolf made clear that in order for CLF’s claims to stand, the organization needed to show that ExxonMobil had either caused harm to the plaintiffs or that harm was “imminent.” The CLF complaint was filled with references to the projected effects of climate change by 2050 or 2100, which the judge said didn’t qualify as imminent. He suggested that if the plaintiffs were concerned about the effects of climate change on the facility in 2050, they should refile their case in 2045.
Sensing that the judge wasn’t going to let them sue ExxonMobil based on climate change, CLF’s lawyers shifted gears early on in the hearing and scrambled to portray their case in a way that didn’t rest on climate change, and was instead about supposed violations of an EPA permit. This change in tactics made clear that CLF – as is always the case with the #ExxonKnew coalitions – isn’t suing ExxonMobil because of climate change. Instead, CLF and others are suing ExxonMobil because it’s ExxonMobil; they will say and do whatever it takes to notch a win against the industry.
The same could be said of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has changed the focus of his own ExxonMobil investigation at least three times, shifting from what ExxonMobil knew about climate change, to what it predicted, to what it supposedly failed to predict. Schneiderman, CLF, and the rest of the #ExxonKnew campaigners are all working backward from their assumption that ExxonMobil must be guilty of something – they have the verdict, now they just need the evidence.
Curiously, every time their core arguments are disproven, they change the narrative and pretend the case is still valid. After reading through millions of pages of internal company documents and pursuing every avenue available to them, Schneiderman and others still have not been able to find any evidence of wrongdoing or fraud.
Meanwhile, the about-face by CLF in the hearing prompted one of ExxonMobil’s lawyers to remark that “something extraordinary happened here today.” Even Judge Wolf commented that CLF’s argument was “evolving” and “shrinking” to a point where it was no longer about climate change, even though climate change was the focus of the organization’s complaint.
Indeed, CLF has repeatedly made clear over the past year and a half that its case was always primarily about climate change. The group’s press release announcing its intent to sue was titled “CLF Sues ExxonMobil Over Decades-Long Climate Deceit.” CLF’s 70-page complaint mentions “climate change” 95 times – more often than it mentions “pollution” or the Clean Water Act.
By mid-afternoon, the judge had made clear that he didn’t want this to become “the Scopes Monkey Trial of the 21st Century” and expressed umbrage at the media attention the case had received. Once it became clear he wasn’t going to allow the case to proceed with the climate change arguments intact, several people supporting CLF left the courtroom.
The organization faces an uphill battle as it amends its complaint to focus on alleged harm to its members, be it current or six decades from now. CLF’s lawyer breezed through most of his points, seemingly realizing as he tried to explain them to the judge that CLF’s accusations were ridiculous and predicated on hypothetical impacts in the future, rather than imminent harm.
It’s worth remembering that CLF is an active participant in the #ExxonKnew campaign. Last year CLF received $250,000 from the Rockefeller Family Fund, one of the groups bankrolling the #ExxonKnew effort. CLF president Bradley Campbell attended a secret meeting with other #ExxonKnew activists at the offices of the Rockefeller Family Fund in January 2016 to hash out a plan to, among other things, “establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm.”
That group discussed potential legal actions they could take against ExxonMobil, including working with state attorneys general (they did), the DOJ (they tried), and torts (CLF announced its intent to sue shortly after the meeting). They continued:
“Which of these has the best prospects for successful action? For getting discovery? For creating scandal? Shortest timeline? Do we know which offices may already be considering action and how we can best engage to convince them to proceed?” (emphasis added)
Consistent with its campaign, CLF focused on the priorities outlined in this memo at the hearing yesterday. The group’s lawyers made sure to request that any potential future discovery allow for the inclusion of documents relating to climate change. They also pushed back on the judge’s suggestion that they take up their complaint with EPA, retorting that litigation would move faster, though the judge was skeptical of that claim.
Campbell, with CLF, also has a questionable history with ExxonMobil, having led an “over-aggressive and flawed…crusade” against the company in 2002. As Energy In Depth explained last year:
“In the case of Exxon, Mr. Campbell enlisted a firm out of Boulder, Colo. called Stratus Consulting to handle much of that work, and boy did it deliver. Stratus consultants never actually visited the sites in question, but based on their desktop research concluded Exxon should pay Mr. Campbell’s office a penalty of about $8.9 billion — for spills Stratus conceded it could neither identify nor date. “
Stratus Consulting is perhaps best known for its role in the fraudulent accusations against Chevron in Ecuador. The firm admitted it knew about attorney misconduct and that pollution claims made against Chevron had no scientific merit.
Undeterred, Campbell’s group repeated its flawed legal tactics in the courtroom yesterday, accusing ExxonMobil of committing hundreds of violations of the Clean Water Act at its Everett facility, a claim ExxonMobil’s lawyers explained was factually inaccurate. CLF even hired the same contingency-fee lawyer they used in 2002, Allan Kanner, to argue the case in court yesterday.
The media has largely portrayed this as a first-of-its-kind case against companies who supposedly have failed to adequately prepare for the effects of climate change, but in the end this judge narrowed the scope of the case so much that it’s likely to slip quietly into obscurity.
Full story: https://energyindepth.org/national/federal-judge-deals-major-blow-to-exxonknew-crusaders/
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Sounds like the Rockefeller Family Fund has betrayed the Rockefeller family name. Exxon / Mobil was the result of a merger of Exxon and Mobil, and Exxon was formerly named Esso, an acronym (SO) for Standard Oil, which was founded by John D. Rockefeller, who must be rolling over in his grave watching people using his name and some of the fortune he left behind to sue the company he founded.
They’re going after Exxon / Mobil because it’s the largest privately owned oil company in the world, but even if the suit succeeded, it would have negligible impact on CO2 emissions, since Exxon / Mobil only controls about 3% of the world’s oil reserves. Most of the world’s oil reserves are controlled by nationalized (government-owned) oil companies in foreign nations, which are much more difficult to sue, since the judges would work for the governments being sued!
..and the legal systems there are known to lop off excess body parts, throw certain kinds of liberals from the roof, or dangle such liberals from the nearest high point or crane…
Puhleze CLF, go for the beeeg fish…..
The disgusting environmental groups seem to take their lead from Lavrenty Beria, head of the old NKVD/KGB. As he famously said, “Show me the man, I’ll show you the crime.” Today with these environazis it’s, “Show me the company and I’ll show you the horrible phony environmental disaster.
If the Oil Companies were as evil as the leftist clowns believe, Campbell would be in my Deadpool.
He suggested that if the plaintiffs were concerned about the effects of climate change on the facility in 2050, they should refile their case in 2045.
ROTFL 😂
That group discussed potential legal actions they could take against ExxonMobil, including working with state attorneys general (they did), the DOJ (they tried), and torts (CLF announced its intent to sue shortly after the meeting). They continued:
“Which of these has the best prospects for successful action? For getting discovery? For creating scandal? Shortest timeline? Do we know which offices may already be considering action and how we can best engage to convince them to proceed?”
___
The above sure sounds like it could be prosecuted under RICO statutes, especially since the supposed charges keep on changing.
Perhaps they should sue because the corporation no longer sponsors the “Mobile Economy Run.” Back in the ’50s what they knew was that cars could get good mileage, but now they don’t want the public to think about that. Obviously adversely impacting poor Americans. /sarc
I think Maxine Water said it best. ‘The idea is to socializes all oil production.’ How else is the federal government going to pay for all the social programs. They (federal government) must take over private markets and pocket profits in order to pay for progressive programs. That’s what happening in the health care system.
I thought you guys have laws that enable judges to rule that court actions like this one are vexatious and frivolous and so be able to be kicked out? Saves a lot of time and money.
The problem is that judges are lawyers. So it’s rare for a judge to declare a case frivolous and throw it out early.
In fairness to judges, American’s are awfully fond of trial by jury. American’s, or at least some of them, are still wary of allowing high officials the authority to decide what is and what is not a valid contention of law. Judges have more authority when it comes to legal issues, but on the matter of “factual” issues judges are greatly restricted.
Taking the infamous McDonald’s coffee spill case (Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants 1994), as frivolous as that case might seem, it all came down to facts. Who spilled the coffee? How hot was it? How much of this was due to a teenage driver vs a teenage drive through attendant? These are fact finding issues, not legal issues.
I am just longing for a deeply contrite Exxon official to say :-
“Yes, we did know. Here is a board memorandum circulated 20 years ago that shows without any shadow of doubt that Exxon knew – that Anthropogenic Climate Change was a fraud”.
Stratus Consulting is much less well-known for its decades long association with the EPA, this was written in 2011:
“The United [Nations] States Environmental Protection Agency”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/science-papers/originals/the-un-states-epa
“Stratus Consulting Inc. has been built into a sizeable company on the back of extensive consultancy work for the EPA and other agencies, which must run into several hundred million dollars. “The company has been awarded 942 government contracts since 1999. Many, but not all, involved work for either NOAA, the EPA or the Justice Department. From 1999 to 2007, Stratus Consulting pulled in an average of 64 contracts per year. From 2008 to 2010, the average per year nearly doubled — to 121 per year. So far, the company has generated only 15 three contracts in 2011”. They received the second-largest amount of money, $22.73 million, from the contracts stemming from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
In 2007, they picked up a five year contract worth $39.4 million. “Stratus Consulting has worked with EPA on climate change issues, specifically greenhouse gas emissions, since 1996, said Joel Smith, vice president at Stratus. “We’ve been looking at energy efficiency programs within a number of states,” he said. “We’ve also looked at consequences of climate change and done work on the science of climate change.”
But they are not climate scientists.
They describe themselves as assisting in crafting federal guidance and providing analytical support for regulatory development at the U.S. EPA for the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and global climate change. They have extensive input into the EPA web sites and into their data management processes:
EPA home page
EPA’s environmental education web sites
EPA’s High School Environmental Center
Data Quality Act/EPA Information Quality Guidelines
Information Quality Guidelines
Critical evaluation of EPA audit regimes
EPA Data Quality Strategic Plan
Business rules to support EPA’s Facility Registry System
EPA’s Quality System
EPA Integrated error correction process
EPA Data Quality Strategic Plan.
It is no wonder that the website says so strongly that “the science is unequivocal,” As major content contributors to the website, Stratus are simply defending their EPA contracts.”
Also Joel Smith and a Stratus colleague edited the Endangerment Finding Technical Support Document.”
Stratus now seem to have been absorbed into http://www.abtassociates.com/, Smith moved with them.
http://www.abtassociates.com/About-Us/Our-People/Associates/Joel-B-Smith.aspx%5D
“Joel B. Smith has been analyzing climate change and adaptation issues for three decades. He was a coordinating lead author or lead author on the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was a member of the U.S. National Climate Change Assessment Federal Advisory Committee and the National Academy of Sciences “Panel on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change.”
Joel Smith is another political scientist, not a climate scientist; he has a BA in Political Science and a Masters in Public Policy. He put his name to the February 2011 “Scientists’ Statement on the Clean Air Act” carried on the Democrat website.
He worked for the EPA from 1984 to 1992, where he was the deputy director of the Climate Change Division, an analyst for oceans and water regulations, and a special assistant to the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation.
He was a co-editor of EPA’s Report to Congress: “The Potential Effects of Global Climate Change on the United States,” published in 1989.
He’s another con man so stupid he thinks it’s real science to claim magical insulation makes more light leak out of rocks it makes less light reach.
An elementary school child can see it’s fraud. Why can’t the thief, Joel Smith?
File your complaint in 2045. That made my day. In 2045 the whole AGW farce is long history.
CO2 is not an important climate driver. The climate crusaders therefore believe in fairies. ExxonKnew thus is equivalent to saying: we believe in the fairies, we know you believe in the fairies too, then why have you done nothing about them?
The need for more money from a carbon tax to drive vote buying amidst high debt load will still be with us in 2045 and probably worse given the typical tactic of putting off the financial burden like ignoring annual retirement system obligations.
“In 2045 the whole AGW farce is long history.” I doubt that, given the widespread ignoring of inconvenient historical data, and that education/media/politicians almost totally fail to condemn it. We have always been at war with Big Oil. The day may not be far off when every storm and drought is referred to as Climate Change.
Speaking of a ‘climate change’… take a look at this excerpt from Hillary’s book.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJjWTDhX0AAD3pD?format=jpg
We indeed dodged a planet suzed asteroid….
Good point.
While staying at a hotel, Weather Channel is force fed in the lobby.
Everything said on that channel is designed to invoke or inflame climate and weather fear.
I get it. It’s the learned legal tactic of “float like a butterfly, and sting like a bee.” That is up until you meet the judge or any other reasoned authority or a fly swatter.
Don’t tell the execrable sturm fuhrer, Naomi Oreskes, tgat her “peer reviewed” “study” might be laughably pathetic fiction.
The absurdity of suing a company for weather events that have yet to occur and cannot be foretold has been officially recognized by the federal judge in Boston. It is about time the judicial system reigns in beyond frivolous lawsuits. The only crime committed is the unwarranted attack on the right of a private company to conduct research and to keep the results proprietary. The Conservation Law Foundation should be sued for abuse of process.
The truth has yet to be discovered about global climate change, regardless of the misguided claims of green activists that the science is settled. A growing body of scientists worldwide now predicts that the global temperature over the next several decades will likely decline, in which case, current environmental policies would be diametrically opposite from the right policies.
“ExxonMobil must be guilty of something – they have the verdict, now they just need the evidence.”
Well, that sure sounds familiar. The same thing is occurring with Donald Trump. They’ve had a verdict ready to go since he defeated Clinton, but the evidence just doesn’t want to cooperate. They know he is guilty, so they keep changing the focus of the investigation hoping to prove something, anything. With Hillary Clinton, it’s just the opposite. They have clear evidence of law breaking, but she was deemed not guilty from day one by the powers that be, so the evidence is irrelevant. Equal justice under the law is not a principle accepted by everyone. Too many in power believe that you have to let the blindfold on Lady Liberty slip once in awhile to protect insider elites and keep outsiders out.
It is this country’s “Law Enforcement” who enable this swill. Nothing will change for the better until enough of their corpses are stacked in the streets. Only then will they decide they chose the wrong career.