Posted on 04/01/2021 2:30:29 PM PDT by crusty old prospector
SAN RAMON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously ruled that the City of New York’s climate change lawsuit against Chevron and a group of other energy producers is without merit and must be dismissed. The court upheld the federal district court’s decision that the City’s claims are barred, holding that municipalities cannot “utilize state tort law to hold multinational oil companies liable for the damages caused by global greenhouse gas emissions.”
While recognizing that “[g]lobal warming is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today,” the court explained also that “[g]lobal warming presents a uniquely international problem of national concern” and “therefore is not well-suited to the application of state law.” The court rejected the City’s attempt to regulate and recover damages from the targeted defendants’ “admittedly legal commercial conduct in producing and selling fossil fuels around the world,” and noted that “every single person who uses gas and electricity contributes to global warming.” In the process, the court rejected the City’s attempt to “sidestep” the “numerous federal statutory regimes and international treaties” that “provide interlocking frameworks for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, as well as enforcement mechanisms to ensure that those regulations are followed.”
“Today’s unanimous opinion by a distinguished panel of judges appointed by Presidents from both parties explains in clear detail why the U.S. climate tort lawsuits are meritless, applying established law as agreed upon by the Justice Department under the previous two U.S. Administrations,” said Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate.
As the court noted, “For over a century, a mostly unbroken string of cases has applied federal law to disputes involving interstate air or water pollution.” And it was fitting, the court concluded, that Congress had, under the Clean Air Act, tasked expert federal agencies with addressing climate change in this “technically complex area of environmental law,” rather than judges, “who lack the scientific, economic, and technological resources to cope with issues of this order.”
Pate added that “Chevron is accelerating its work on today’s energy transition, while continuing to supply oil and natural gas that remains essential for people around the world. We believe that working with the new U.S. Administration, other governments, and other honest stakeholders on constructive global solutions is a better path than meritless, cynical, and wasteful litigation.”
The Court of Appeals’ unanimous decision rejects attempts to invest courts and “vague and indeterminate” state laws with the power to override the extensive and carefully crafted network of federal and international standards that already govern greenhouse gas emissions and promises to keep decisionmaking in this crucial area with the proper federal legislative and agency policymakers. As the Second Circuit explained, “To permit this suit to proceed under state law would further risk upsetting the careful balance that has been struck between the prevention of global warming, a project that necessarily requires national standards and global participation, on the one hand, and energy production, economic growth, foreign policy, and national security, on the other.”
The Second Circuit’s opinion today is the first federal appellate decision on the merits of any of the dozens of near-identical climate change lawsuits that various states, counties, and cities around the country have lodged against Chevron and other energy producers in recent years.
Lead outside counsel for Chevron, Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., noted that “the unanimous opinion exposes—and correctly rejects—the sleight-of-hand that the plaintiffs have presented to the courts, in which they seek a money judgment based on worldwide emissions that they attribute to the defendants’ lawful energy-producing activities at the same time that they pretend they are not trying to regulate the energy industry. As the Second Circuit found, plaintiffs in these baseless cases cannot use ‘artful pleading’ to escape the fact their claims are federal in nature and legally barred.”
As the court put it: “[T]he City’s complaint whipsaws between disavowing any intent to address emissions and identifying such emissions as the singular source of the City’s harm. But the City cannot have it both ways.” The court firmly rejected the City’s attempts to re-characterize its claims as routine state-law nuisance or misrepresentation torts concerned with local conduct: “Artful pleading cannot transform the City’s complaint into anything other than a suit over global greenhouse gas emissions. It is precisely because fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases—which collectively ‘exacerbate global warming’—that the City is seeking damages.” The court thus rejected the City’s attempts to paint its claims as anything other than an attempt to regulate the national and indeed international energy industry. “Stripped to its essence, then, the question before us is whether a nuisance suit seeking to recover damages for the harms caused by global greenhouse gas emissions may proceed under New York law. Our answer is simple: no.”
Chevron Corporation is one of the world’s leading integrated energy companies. Through its subsidiaries that conduct business worldwide, the company is involved in virtually every facet of the energy industry. Chevron explores for, produces and transports crude oil and natural gas; refines, markets and distributes transportation fuels and lubricants; manufactures and sells petrochemicals and additives; generates power; and develops and deploys technologies that enhance business value in every aspect of the company’s operations. Chevron is based in San Ramon, Calif. More information about Chevron is available at www.chevron.com.
The Left doesn’t want to support the economy, they want to wreck it. Chevron isn’t cooperating, shame on them!
“The court thus rejected the City’s attempts to paint its claims as anything other than an attempt to regulate the national and indeed international energy industry.”
Yet California passes these laws and these companies roll over and take it then pass it down to us...
Yes they will be back. They shut down their economy and need money from someone.
Yes, but not for the reason the Second Circuit is implying. The real reason is that it's a red herring for commies to bludgeon healthy economies into submission.
What, exactly, are the damages caused by global greenhouse gas emissions?
ML/NJ
Well glad it got thrown out. If it went to trial it would (or at least should) be impossible to prove, and to prove damages.
And if the case had merit, then maybe New Hampshire can sue New York for all the carbon emissions that New Yorkers burn driving their cars, taxis, trucks, trains etc. After all the state is quite happy to collect gasoline taxes from the oil companies.
If New York was serious about the actual issue, then the obvious step is for them to ban combustion engines and other carbon fuels from the state.
And in greater numbers.
And if Chevron and the other carbon-based fuel producers had any guts, they would withdraw all of their products from the New York market, whether it be gasoline, fuel oil, natural gas, or anything else remotely petroleum based.
Yeah... but they are a business and NY is a big market. Cheaper to hire lawyers. If they did ultimately lose such a lawsuit then they would be justified jacking the prices to cover their losses.
During the last ice age, the Great Lakes were formed and filled with melted water when the mile thick ice sheet melted due to climate change. Can anyone explain what did man do to cause this climate change? Did he drive gas guzzling SUVs? Did he burn hydrocarbons to stay warm? What did man do? Or, or was it something else which man had no control over? MMMMMMM, what could it have been?
“Yes, but not for the reason the Second Circuit is implying. The real reason is that it’s a red herring for commies to bludgeon healthy economies into submission.”
Actually...what they’re doing is trying to impose a TAX on Chevron, which would then be spread out across the country (at a minimum). Think of it as NY wants to tax ALL drivers in the United States 40 cents a gallon, and keep all of that money. Clever idea, but too bad, the court saw through it.
Uhh, maybe mastodon farts.
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