Oil Firms Rejected by Supreme Courtroom on Transferring Local weather Struggle
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from oil companies like BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. It left a key procedural decision that benefited two California cities suing billions of dollars to combat the effects of climate change.
The judges refused, without comment, to consider the industry’s offer to move the lawsuit in federal court, where companies tend to do better than state courts.
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The rejection is a victory for San Francisco and Oakland, part of a group of litigants across the country calling for reimbursement of costs related to sea level rise, including coastal flooding, increased coastal erosion and saltwater impacts on sewage treatment plants.
Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and ConocoPhillips are also named as defendants in the lawsuit.
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Cities are suing state law, claiming the companies created a “public nuisance” through a decades-long campaign to discredit the science of global warming, misrepresent and cover up the dangers of fossil fuels, and downplay the potentially disastrous consequences.
The companies said the lawsuit raises federal issues that cannot be adequately addressed from state to state. An appeals court rejected this line of argument, but said the companies could still bring other arguments in favor of referring the case to federal court.
The case is Chevron v Oakland, 20-1089.
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