America's Talking - Critics: Climate Change Lawsuits on Tenuous Legal Grounds

Episode Date: April 5, 2025

(The Center Square) – A flurry of lawsuits have been filed around the country in recent years attempting to make oil and gas companies pay for the costs of climate change. But critics of these lawsuits say that they are on tenuous legal ground because of a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court case, and proving direct causation is difficult. One such case is underway in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a moderate state known for its energy industry and that is inevitably at the center of presidential politics each election cycle. The Bucks County government – like many other local and state governments around the country – has filed a lawsuit against the largest and most recognizable oil companies in the U.S., demanding huge payouts for their alleged role in causing climate change.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_ffa94fbd-c64e-4bdf-ab27-3a25faaa1af3.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire service. Blue cities and states across the U.S. have filed a series of similar lawsuits attempting to make oil and gas companies pay for the cost of climate change. Critics say these lawsuits are on tenuous illegal ground because of a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling and because proving direct causation is nearly impossible. joining me to discuss this today is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square.

Casey, you wrote about these lawsuits this week, particularly on one filed by Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. Tell our listeners more. Yeah, this is a really interesting story. This has been going on for over a decade. It's just now starting to come to a head. But over a decade ago, local governments, you know, cities, counties, and in some cases, a few states filed lawsuits against some of the biggest energy companies in the country, the big oil companies. that we would all recognize. And they hired these law firms to do it. And what they said was they want the oil companies to pay, you know, there's not always numbers attached, but you could imagine we're talking hundreds of millions, probably in all the lawsuits total, we're talking billions of dollars. And what do they want the money for? They say that basically the oil companies

have caused climate change and they need to pay billions of dollars to help fix it. It's called an abatement where they do things like build a seawall to prevent against the rising ocean levels. You know, there's other things that environmental groups would say could help ameliorate the effects of climate change. But basically they're saying these oil companies are responsible and they have to pay these huge sums. Now, this comes at a time when President Donald Trump is calling for more oil and gas drilling for more domestic exploration. And of course, these lawsuits don't incentivize that at all. if drilling in the U.S. could get you hit with a, you know, a couple billion dollar lawsuit. You can get blamed for global climate change.

You know, that doesn't incentivize it. Now, what opponents in the energy companies say, they really focus in on in their lawsuits that the oil companies, they say, knew that climate change was happening for a long time and didn't do anything. And they basically, they say that the oil companies like deceive the country and that they knew this was coming on. Now, the oil companies and their, you know, partners say that, hey, we have followed, you know, federal law to the letter. We don't break federal law. The federal government, Congress,

created an extensive, elaborate regulatory structure through the Clean Air Act and other regulations that say there's just basically there's, you know, thousands of laws that we have to follow to make sure that the climate's staying care of and the environment's staying care of, and we follow all of them. And if Congress, you know, wants to pass more laws to make the environment safer, then we'll follow those too. But when we followed all the laws, how can you sue? us. You know, we've done everything that Congress has said we're supposed to do. That's kind of their defense. There's more defenses, too. We can get into, Dan. The example, like, as you mentioned at the top about the tenuous legal ground and how you exactly prove causation, but that's the groundwork.

Right. And this idea that you can prove direct causation, for example, Bucks County government, which brought this particular lawsuit, they bought gas-fueled vehicles for their employees and had their employees drive them around, right? They used. They've been using different forms of electricity or whatever going back decades. So how do you directly assign a specific percentage of blame to something like the oil and gas companies when individuals and governments have been using fossil fuels for decades? Right. Yeah.

I mean, it's impossible. And that's part of the problem. Now, I mean, there's no doubting that, I mean, it's pretty much while they accept it. And the Clean Air Act exists because we know that there have to be regulations and restrictions in place to protect the environment. and those, as I said, are followed. So it's not as if there's an argument for just let emissions run a while and do whatever you want. But the idea that you can prove that one individual oil company or a group of oil companies are responsible for the exact CO2 emissions that then caused specific effects. It's very difficult to prove. For instance, you know, China releases far more

emissions than the U.S. does. Right. And so we pretty much shut down all our coal for it. But they were building, multiple coal power plants, you know, dozens every year, new ones, right? And of course, that, you know, the air is, the occurrence is taken all over the world. So we have Chinese pollution here in the U.S., absolutely. We had, you know, because it's carried over in the air. And so, you know, the defense is, how can you prove that what caused the damage here isn't Chinese pollution or some other country, developing country, Indian pollution, or, you know, Brazilian pollution, these developing countries are really starting to expand their energy industry. So how can you prove that?

And then by the way, how can you prove that the pollution actually caused real damages to Bucks County? I mean, can you prove that this lake is gone because of air pollution or whatever it may be? Those are some difficulties legally that they're navigating. Another one is, how can you bring a lawsuit against someone when you don't have any one individual who's been harmed? So, you know, in a legal battle, normally you have to have an individual. a plaintiff who, or, you know, a person who is injured, right? You have to prove that you are the one who's willing to both bring this lawsuit. So like, Dan, you and I could not, you know, sue the government of North Carolina for doing a bad job distributing FEMA aid after the hurricane. Maybe they did do a

bad job, but you and I were not personally harmed by that FEMA aid distribution. So we cannot be the ones to bring the lawsuit. We don't have a cause of action. We're not the, we can't be the ones to bring the lawsuit because we were not personally. damaged. You have to find someone in North Carolina if you wanted to sue FEMA. You have to find someone in North Carolina and prove that they were injured or suffered somehow because of FEMA's alleged malpractice and then go from there. So how do you find, with that legal framework in mind, how do you find an individual who has been damaged by climate change enough to where they could sue? And the answer is you really can't. So they have to take this other legal route called public nuisance, which is kind of unusual.

It's in the Supreme Court in 2011, basically ruled that you're, could not bring, you know, federal common law public nuisance claims. I know it's kind of technical, but they struck this down. Now, the people who are bringing the cases say, well, that only applies to federal law. It doesn't apply to state law. And so that's a big legal question. It's a big constitutional question. There's a good chance it could end up back in the Supreme Court. On that question alone, let alone the merits of the case of if you can prove these oil companies are responsible. Thank you for joining us today. Casey, listeners can keep up with this story and more. at thecenter square.com.