Maine Joins List of States Suing the Oil Industry for Decades of Lies

The state of Maine has sued a collection of major oil and gas companies and an industry group for its decades of climate change misinformation and related misdeeds. It joins a growing list of states and cities that are trying — so far without success — to drag Big Oil into state court to be held accountable for, more or less, breaking the world.

“For over half a century, these companies chose to fuel profits instead of following their science to prevent what are now likely irreversible, catastrophic climate effects,” said Maine Attorney General Frey, in a statement on Tuesday. “In so doing, they burdened the State and our citizens with the consequences of their greed and deception.”

The complaint, which singles out ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, Sunoco, and the American Petroleum Institute, alleges that the industry giants were well aware of the effects of burning their products for decades, and themselves took measures to protect their assets against rising seas, stronger storms, and other impacts. “But rather than warn consumers and the public, fossil fuel companies and their surrogates mounted a disinformation campaign to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change,” the complaint reads.

Eight other states — New Jersey, California, Delaware, Minnesota, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, plus the District of Columbia — have filed similar suits in recent years, to go with a host of municipalities and tribal nations. They all follow a similar theme: the oil industry engaged in a protracted, intentional, deeply cynical campaign to keep people in the dark about what was coming. The oil companies want the cases dragged into federal rather than state court, because they think, probably correctly, that the federal judiciary and their buddies at the Supreme Court will be a bit friendlier.

ExxonMobil offered something of an odd, uh, defense to the latest lawsuit, according to the New York Times: “Well over half of the households in Maine use petroleum products for home heating — a larger share than any other state,” the company said in a statement.”These baseless claims ignore the state’s historic dependence on oil and natural gas, do nothing to address the risks of climate change and waste taxpayer dollars.” So, the state uses a lot of the stuff we spent decades lying to convince them to use — you do get how that’s worse, right?

Shell seems mildly better at the PR response here, agreeing that action on the issue is needed but that “We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change.”

So far at least, they’ve managed to stay out of the courtroom, with none of those cases coming to trial; a city case in Baltimore was thrown out in July, marking the first time any of the cases had been dismissed in state court. And of course, that list of states is definitively tinted blue; a collection of red states led by Alabama, meanwhile, has filed a motion to try and block the climate lawsuits entirely, arguing hilariously that they “threaten… our basic way of life.”

Maine is seeking a jury trial, and for the companies to pay for “both past and future climate harms.”

“For decades, big oil companies have made record profits, taking billions out of the pockets of Maine people while deliberately deceiving them about the harmful impacts of fossil fuels – impacts that Maine people see and feel every day,” said the governor, Democrat Janet Mills. “[I]t is time for the fossil fuel industry to be held responsible.”