UPDATE: Trump’s DOJ swoops in to save Big Oil

The nation’s biggest oil companies must be very scared that, very soon, one of the many lawsuits accusing them of lying to the public about climate change will succeed, and they’ll be made to pay billions of dollars in climate damages, adaptation costs, and public education campaigns to correct the lies they told. Because yesterday, the Trump Department of Justice sued the state of Minnesota to stop its climate deception lawsuit against some of the world’s most powerful fossil fuel interests—at the exact moment the case was cleared to move into discovery. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed this lawsuit in the dark ages: 2020. In it, he accused ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Flint Hills Resources, and the American Petroleum Institute of “deliberately undermining the science of climate change, purposefully downplaying the role that the purchase and consumption of their products played in causing climate change … [and] failing to fully inform the consumers and the public of their understanding that without swift action, it would be too late to ward off the devastation.” By covering up what it knew about climate change, Ellison’s lawsuit alleges the oil companies violated Minnesota laws against consumer fraud, false advertising, deceptive trade practices, fraud, misrepresentation, and failure to warn. As a remedy, Ellison’s lawsuit is seeking money to help cover climate-related costs in Minnesota, the return of profits tied to the oil companies’ alleged deception, and a court-ordered public education campaign correcting the record on climate change. (Remember this, it will become important soon). The case has spent the last six years tangled up in procedural purgatory. But last month, the Minnesota Supreme Court declined to take up the oil industry’s latest appeal. And on Monday, the stay in the case dissolved, meaning Minnesota’s lawsuit could finally start moving toward discovery—the juicy part of the legal process where companies may have to turn over internal documents and answer questions under oath. So naturally, that’s the moment the Trump administration swooped in with a lawsuit seeking to kill Minnesota’s case. The DOJ’s complaint is an incredible piece of rage bait for anyone following these cases closely. It is, in essence, an exercise in the propagandistic practice of repeating something false over and over and over in the hopes that eventually, people will start to believe it. The falsehood that the DOJ’s complaint is built on is that Minnesota’s lawsuit is a covert plot to set national energy policy. In paragraph after paragraph, the DOJ claims Minnesota’s lawsuit is seeking to “regulate global greenhouse gas emissions,” which falls under federal authority, and therefore must be dismissed. I thought about listing all the times here, but I will spare you. You can just read the complaint. What’s more important to sear into your brain is that this just… isn’t true. Remember when I told you what Ellison’s lawsuit is seeking? Reimbursement for climate-related costs, the return of profits tied to deception, a court-ordered public education campaign. Do you see “a change in greenhouse gas regulations” there? You don’t! Because it is not there. This lie is not only the center of the DOJ’s complaint. It is the backbone of the oil industry’s broader, multi-pronged campaign to achieve permanent, sweeping legal immunity from all climate lawsuits nationwide. We discussed this two weeks ago in our newsletter/podcast episode about the “Stop Climate Shakedowns Act,” the bill introduced by Republicans Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Harriet Hageman, which would make it illegal to sue the fossil fuel industry or any fossil fuel-adjacent company over damages from climate change. To justify that bill, Cruz and Hageman argued that climate liability lawsuits are attempts by states “to impose a radical climate agenda nationwide.” And they’re not! They are just, factually, not. Now, it is true that the impact of a bunch of successful climate liability lawsuits might wind up being national. If Big Oil is forced to pay for even a fraction of the damage it lied its way into worsening, fossil fuels may become more expensive. That is the entire point of accountability: costs stop being dumped entirely on the public and start landing, at least in part, on the companies that helped create them. But that is not the same thing as “regulating global greenhouse gas emissions.” It’s just your basic fraud lawsuit with consequences, just like the successful lawsuits against Big Tobacco and Big Opioid. But the oil industry needs to spread conspiratorial disinformation like this, because it’s the only way it’s going to build support for its insane ask for complete legal immunity. So if you care about climate accountability, cement this in your brain now: these lawsuits are not secret attempts to regulate fossil fuels. They are attempts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for deception. The industry and its paid political allies are going to keep loudly proclaiming otherwise, because they desperately need a valid-sound argument to justify shielding Big Oil from the law, and making communities continue to bear the costs of catastrophic climate change. So it’s important to be armed with the truth. And you’d like to learn more about the various ways Big Oil is trying to achieve legal immunity, check out our interview at the top of this newsletter with Mike Meno, the communications director for the Center for Climate Integrity.