Critics say, if the lawsuits succeed, an enormous wealth transfer could ensue and consumers will pay even higher prices for fuel and food to fund settlements.
A recent barrage of lawsuits is targeting fuel and food companies for their alleged contribution to global warming.
States, cities, and counties “are bringing these cases with help from white-shoe law firms, funded by nonprofit money from Big Philanthropy,” according to a recent
report by Capital Research.
Their goal is to set national policy on essential products like food and fuel without having to go through the process of public debate and consensus that is necessary to passing laws.
“In the political process where we decide these things, there’s a lot of trade offs with climate change policy, and it affects everyone,” Robert Stilson, research specialist at Capital Research and author of the Feb. 8 report, told The Epoch Times.
“I think they see this as a way to get around that legislative process,” he said.
Critics of the effort say, if it succeeds, it could result in an enormous wealth transfer, with consumers paying higher prices for fuel and food to fund settlements.
At the center of this legal campaign is a private San Francisco-based law firm, Sher Edling, which
states that it “represents cities, counties, and states in lawsuits to hold fossil fuel industry defendants accountable for their decades-long campaigns of deception about the science of climate change and the role their products play in causing it.”
A network of activist charity funds, led by a progressive
advisory firm called Arabella Advisors, has been paying Sher Edling to play that role, according to a Fox News
report.
While dozens of lawsuits have been lodged against energy companies over the past year, targeting food companies is a new development.
On Feb. 28, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued JBS USA Food Company, a U.S. subsidiary of the Brazil-based JBS Group, the world’s largest meat processor.
“JBS USA has made several misleading claims about its environmental impact, including pledges to curb deforestation and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions,” Ms. James said in an official
statement, asserting that “beef production emits the most greenhouse gasses of any major food commodity, and animal agriculture accounts for 14.5 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions.”
This suit follows dozens of municipal lawsuits, from Hawaii to Vermont, against fossil fuel companies, which plaintiffs liken to state lawsuits against tobacco companies that netted more than $200 billion in
fines in 1998.
According to the National Association of Attorneys General, the tobacco companies named in that suit were
required to make annual payments to states in perpetuity, so long as cigarettes are sold in the United States.
Analogous to the tobacco suits, these climate lawsuits are based on charges of corporate deceit.
(Left) New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks in New York City on Oct. 2, 2023. (Right) A JBS Processing Plant stands dormant after a ransomeware attack halted operations, in Greeley, Colo., on June 1, 2021. John Lamparski/AFP via Getty Images, Chet Strange/Getty Images
‘Find One Judge in One State’
On Feb. 20, the city of Chicago followed that example and sued BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute for “deceiving Chicago consumers about the climate dangers associated with their products.”“From the unprecedented poor air quality that we experienced last summer to the basement floodings that our residents on the West Side experienced, the consequences of this crisis are severe, as are the costs of surviving them,” Mayor Brandon Johnson
stated.
In September 2023, California filed climate lawsuits against Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron, also charging that they misled the public about climate change and their contribution to it.
“For more than 50 years, Big Oil has been lying to us—covering up the fact that they’ve long known how dangerous the fossil fuels they produce are for our planet,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom
stated.
“Wildfires wiping out entire communities, toxic smoke clogging our air, deadly heat waves, record-breaking droughts parching our wells.”
One
report claims that “more than US$19 billion in property value, at today’s dollars, is at risk by 2100 from projected sea level rise, driven by greenhouse gas emissions largely from the burning of fossil fuels.”
Whether the majority of these cases stand on their merits could prove to be beside the point.
“The litigants are hoping to find one judge in one state in one courtroom that sees a path to allowing these cases to go to trial,” a Yale University
report about climate lawsuits states.
(Top) A lone lodgepole pine stands in an area logged after the mountain pine beetle killed most of the trees in the stand in Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest near Deer Lodge, Mont., on Sept. 12, 2019. (Bottom) The Phillips 66 Los Angeles Refinery Wilmington Plant stands beyond a residential street, in Wilmington, Calif., on Nov. 28, 2022. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Mario Tama/Getty Images
“Once you get to that point—where you’re past preliminary motions and you’re heading toward discovery and trial—it’s a very different balance of power between the litigants,” the report states. “The plaintiffs can start asking for documents and can start constructing a narrative about what the industry knew and how it acted in the face of that knowledge.”
Also in litigants’ favor is the fact that courts have generally accepted that global warming is occurring and is caused by human activity.
Oil companies have attempted to defend themselves by appealing to federal judges, arguing that the issue should be decided according to federal law rather than in a multitude of local jurisdictions.
But, in April 2023, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, allowing the municipal suits to go forward.
The Money Chain
Alongside the rise of what has been called “lawfare” and “lawsuit litigation” has come the increasing influence of charity groups and tax-exempt donations in American politics.According to a Fox News
investigation, based on tax filings, New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) charity fund, donated $2.5 million to Sher Edling attorneys in 2022 alone. The New Venture Fund is managed by
Arabella Advisors, a firm that is deeply involved with some of the most prominent financiers of progressive policies and Democratic Party candidates.
“You have this whole self-dealing scheme where progressive donors are hiding behind nonprofits and taking advantage of that from a tax perspective, then funding Democrat law firms, and also, Democrat politicians and elected officials are participating as well,” Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, told
Fox News.
“This is further evidence that the green movement is no longer about protecting the environment.”
A person finishes pumping gas at a Shell gas station in Houston, Texas, on April 1, 2022. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The Capital Research report states that payments to Sher Edling appear to have been routed through one of the New Venture Fund’s numerous fiscally-sponsored projects, the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience, and Adaptation, whose self-stated purpose is to “enable cities, counties, and states hard hit by climate change to file high-impact climate damage and deception lawsuits represented by expert counsel.”
If the effort is successful, prices would increase and add to the inflation that has reduced the living standards of many Americans over the past three years.
“Think about how important oil and gas resources are to humanity’s entire standard of living,” Mr. Stilson said. “Policy that would impact them, in any direction, is going to necessarily affect every person in our society, and, it should be pointed out, the constituents of these very governments that are filing these lawsuits.”
Responding to a query from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), attorneys for Sher Edling stated in a
letter that “eradicating fossil fuels and bankrupting such companies are not what the pending lawsuits are about; rather, the lawsuits center on compensating communities for injuries arising from specific corporate misconduct by particular members of the fossil fuel industry.”
The Epoch Times contacted Sher Edling for comment but didn’t receive a reply.
