What A Day - Can Big Oil Grease The Courts?

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

The war in Iran has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil transfer point, sending oil prices over $100 a barrel with the potential to go even higher. And yet, the odds of the Trump administration suddenly pivoting to invest in renewable energy are pretty much zero. Last year, the Department of Justice submitted a brief urging the Supreme Court to take up a case that could limit cities' and states' ability to sue oil and gas companies for environmental damage — and the court has agreed to hear it. For more on what's at stake here, we spoke with Mike Meno. He's the communications director for the Center for Climate Integrity, an advocacy organization that works with communities to hold Big Oil accountable.And in headlines, the head of the Federal Communications Commission makes another thinly veiled threat, the Kennedy Center Board is expected to vote on President Trump's grand renovation plans today, the department tasked with keeping Americans safe at home is still shut down.Show Notes: Check out the Center For Climate Integrity  Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Monday, March 16th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. The show that says, when your war in Iran has lost former Trump national security advisor and bombing Iran enthusiast John Bolton, you're having a bad time. Last week, Bolton, who suggested bombing Iran in 2015, tweeted, quote, I favor regime change in Iran, but I'm deeply worried that inadequate preparation will prevent that goal from being achieved. There seem to be holes in the strategy from the lack of coordination, with the opposition to the elapsed in preparing the American people ahead of the attack. Again, when you've lost John Bolton, well... On today's show, the department tasked with keeping Americans safe at home is still shut down,

even as war rages on in the Middle East. And the Federal Communications Commission will just not let us be. But let's start with oil. The war in Iran, a war of choice with no ending in sight, has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil transfer point. Because of that, oil prices are now over $100 a barrel and threatening to go even higher. But when NBC's meet the press host, Kristen Welker, asked if Americans should be worried on Sunday,

Energy Secretary Chris Wright did not exactly have an answer prepared. Should they be worried that this war will actually drive the price of oil above $200 a barrel? So Iran for 47 years has called the United States the Great Satan. So because they call us the Great Satan, I don't think we are the Great Satan. Satan. In fact, clearly we're not. So I don't listen much to Iranian projections of what's going to happen. So that's a no? Is that a no? Is that a no? Very important waterway. It's a, I would pay no attention to what Iran says. That was not a no. And when asked when oil prices will go down by Martha Raditz on ABC's this week Sunday, Secretary Wright had more non-answers.

Are you really sure it's going to be short term? Can you guarantee it'll just be weeks? four prices go down? Hey, there's no guarantees in wars at all. So that's not ideal. Now, you might be thinking, wouldn't this be less of a crisis if the U.S. wasn't so reliant on fossil fuels? That's the argument that plenty of climate experts

have been making recently. But the odds of the Trump administration suddenly pivoting to invest in renewable energy are pretty much zero. To remember, in his first term, Trump claimed with no evidence that wind turbines cause cancer. And in his second term,

the president has gone after subsidies for renewables. In an executive order targeting those subsidies, Trump said relying on green energy, quote, threatens national security by making the United States dependent on supply chains controlled by foreign adversaries. Interesting. But oil? Trump loves oil.

And it's not just Trumpian rhetoric. His administration has repeatedly gone out of its way to back big oil. Last year, the Department of Justice submitted a brief urging the Supreme Court to take up a case that could limit the ability of cities and cities and states to file lawsuits against oil and gas companies for environmental damage. And now, the court has agreed to hear the case. For more on what's at stake here, I spoke with Mike Meno. He's a communications director for the Center for Climate Integrity, an advocacy organization

that works with communities to hold big oil accountable. Mike, welcome to what today. Thanks for having me, Jane. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear arguments in a case involving a lawsuit by Boulder County, Colorado against ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy. Before we get to the Supreme Court case, what is Boulder County suing these companies for? All across the United States, from Maine to Hawaii, dozens of state and local governments are right now suing major oil and gas companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell BP, for deceiving the public about their fossil fuel products role in the climate crisis to hold them accountable for that deception and to make them pay. for the associated damages that they caused.

So the arguments in these cases are a lot like the lawsuits against tobacco companies or opioid manufacturers. These companies knew they were selling a harmful product. They lied to protect their profits. And now communities like Boulder are saying they need to be held accountable and pay for the damages that their deception has caused. And, you know, for Boulder, this question of who should pay for climate damages is not theoretical. In 2021, part of Boulder County was hit by the Marshall Fire. It was the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history. More than a thousand homes were destroyed.

And Boulder's lawsuit, which was filed in 2018, specifically names the increased risk of wildfires is one of the things that county needs to pay for and protect residents against going forward. So I wanted to ask, because you made a comparison that was really interesting to me. the comparison to lawsuits made against big tobacco and lawsuits made against Purdue Pharma and opioid manufacturers. Both of those entities, there's a very clear paper trail where both said our products are not harmful. What is Boulder, Colorado arguing is the similar element here? What did oil companies tell us that wasn't true?

So thanks to whistleblowers, journalists, congressional investigations, we have a well-documented body of evidence that shows that companies like Exxon knew decades ago, as early as the 1970s, that in the words of one internal industry document, if we didn't stop using fossil fuels, it could lead to potentially catastrophic events. But what did the companies do with this information? We also have internal industry documents showing that they decided that rather than warn the public about the problem and help to steer the nation toward a safer, cleaner energy future. Instead, they decided to lie, to deceive the public, to spread misinformation.

And in doing so, they stole decades of time when we could have been doing more on climate change. And now communities like Boulder are paying the price for that deception. Now, the reason this case is going before the Supreme Court is not because of Boulder County. It's because of the oil companies. Why are the oil companies arguing the Supreme Court needs to intervene here? As you might imagine, big oil companies are terrified of standing trial in these cases. They've argued in their own Supreme Court briefs that they're facing massive monetary liability in these lawsuits. And if they're really held accountable to stop deceiving the public and pay for the damages that they've caused,

they're staring at billions and billions of dollars in liability. The oil companies claim that by trying to make these companies, companies pay for local climate damages, these communities are somehow trying to actually set national climate policy and that these cases are therefore preempted by federal law. Of course, Boulder's lawsuit is trying to do no such thing. And a growing number of courts, including the Colorado Supreme Court, that have looked at this issue, have rejected Big Oil's arguments. So given the makeup of the Supreme Court, which is pretty conservative right now,

Is there any reason to think they won't just side with the energy companies in this case? You know, obviously a lot of people hear a case is going to the Supreme Court and it raises alarm bills. But again, the U.S. Supreme Court has turned down many previous requests to take up one of these lawsuits as they're making their way through the lower courts as they're heading to trial. And the justices sat on the petition in this case for several months. And when they finally agreed to take the case, we got a hint at what might have been going on. closed doors, and that was that the justices added a second question, which was, do we, the Supreme Court, even have jurisdiction, meaning the authority, to hear this case right now at this time before there's a final judgment? So there are really signs that the justices internally

might have doubts that they should even be weighing in on this issue yet. But on that core issue of are these cases preempted by federal law? Look, every state Supreme Court to rule on this to date, including the Colorado Supreme Court, has said, no, these cases are squarely about holding companies accountable for deceptive conduct, and that communities like Boulder should be allowed to proceed toward discovery and trial. Last spring, the Wall Street Journal reported on a meeting President Trump had with oil and gas executives at the White House. What have those executives been lobbying for from the Trump administration? Yeah, so I think what's really telling is that Wall Street Journal story said one of the top concerns oil, executives brought directly to President Trump in person, where lawsuits exactly like Boulders.

So a month after that meeting where they asked President Trump, can you help us fight these lawsuits, Trump issued an executive order. He directed Attorney General Bondi to take all appropriate action to try to stop these lawsuits. The Justice Department actually sued two states, Michigan and Hawaii, that had said, we're going to file our own lawsuits against big oil companies. And the case against Michigan has been dismissed, but the one against Hawaii is still pending. And perhaps the most consequential thing the Trump administration has done to date to help bail out big oil was to tell the Supreme Court, again, in an uninvited brief, a rare thing, you should take up this Boulder case. Oil companies are also working with Republican members in Congress to create

legislation that would shield them from lawsuits that hold them responsible for environmental damage. What do we know about those efforts? Yeah, it's true. They are so terrified of facing any kind of accountability. They're not content to just make their case in court and take their chances. They're actually going around the courts directly lobbying Congress for what's called the liability waiver. This would be essentially immunity from any laws or lawsuits that could hold them accountable. The American Petroleum Association, the biggest oil lobbying group, said that killing these types of lawsuits is their top priority for 2026. And a House Republican, Harriet Hagerman from Wyoming, has said she's working with colleagues in the House. Senate to introduce a bill that would shield oil companies from having to face any type of legal liability. It's been interesting because you would think, and when Trump came back into office, you kind of had this idea, like, this is going to be boom times for the oil and gas industry. He's going to open up drilling in a host of environmental refuges. There's going to be, you know, big oil and big gas are going to be the beneficiaries of this administration. And that hasn't really

been true to the extent that I think a lot of oil companies probably expected in 2024. And now we're in the midst of a war with Iran that is pushing gas prices up because even with domestic production, there's only so much that the United States can do if the straight of form moves is closed. But I think the wider thing I think everyone should be thinking about is why are we so reliant on oil? It seems like to me a worthwhile opportunity to be rethinking our relationship with big oil. Amen. And in fact, the reason we're still so reliant on oil and gas is because decades ago, big oil saw the writing on the wall, hey, if we don't do something, there's going to be growing demands to transition to cleaner energy. And so what did they do? They launched this unprecedented consequential massive deception campaign to spread climate denial and disinformation and stall the clean energy transition, which if we had been further along right now without those decades of lies. from oil and gas companies, you know, we would not be perhaps in as big a mess as we are today. Now climate damages are costing the United States somewhere in the neighborhood of a trillion

dollars a year. And all those costs right now are falling on taxpayers while the companies that knowingly caused the problem lied about it and continue to deceive the public, right? They pretend, hey, we're actually part of the energy transition where they're not. They're still doubling down on fossil fuels. And if big oil isn't held accountable for that, It's going to continue to be communities and taxpayers that continue to pay all the costs of climate damages. Mike, thank you so much for your time. Jane, thanks so much. That was my conversation with Mike Meno, Communications Director for the Center for Climate Integrity.

Talking about climate change always gets me worked up. I think we could all use a little break. So grab yourself a cup of water. Get your steps in. And if you like the show, hit subscribe, leave us a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Check us out on YouTube and share with your friends. We'll be back after some ads. What Today is brought to you by ORAFraM's.

We take a ton of photos of our dog, because he is beautiful. And with OroFrames, I can see our photos whenever I want, and so can our friends and family. AuraFrams offers free and limited storage. You can add as many photos and videos as you want, and you can preload photos before it shifts. Keep adding from anywhere, anytime. OroFrams is the perfect gift every time. Named No. 1 by Wirecutter, you can save from the preload photos. perfect gift by visiting orframes.com. For limited time, listeners can get $35 off their best-selling

Carver mat frame with code Wad. That's A-U-R-A-Frams.com promo code Wad. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. What a day is brought to you by Factor. I love to cook. Even when it's hot, even when I'm tired. But even I have my limits, like on a day that doesn't seem to stop. That's why I love Factor. What goes inside a Factor meal? Quality, functional ingredients including lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole food ingredients, and healthy fats. No refined sugars, no artificial sweeteners, no refined seed oils. And meals that fit your goals and schedule. Healthyer eating, calorie management, more protein. There's also tons of variety. A hundred rotating weekly meals to keep things fresh and delicious throughout winter and spring.

Options include high protein, calorie smart, Mediterranean diet, GLP1 support, and ready to eat salads. Plus, the new Muscle Pro collection supports strength and recovery. Perfect if you're getting back into a workout routine. And you can't beat the convenience. It's always fresh, never frozen, ready in about two minutes, no prep, no stress, you can actually stick to your goals. When I'm genuinely too busy to cook, Factor is there for me. Head to FactorMails.com slash Wad50 off and use code Wad50 off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Offer only valid for new Factor customers with a code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with Factor. Quick question. Are you politically engaged in

spiritually exhausted? If you said yes to both, welcome home. I'm Erin Ryan. And I'm Alyssa Master of Monaco. And we're the host of Hysteria, the podcast for women who care about democracy, culture, and not losing their minds in the process. We break down the news, call out the nonsense, and spotlight the women actually fighting back on Capitol Hill, in classrooms, and everywhere the stakes are high. It's sharp, honest analysis featuring women's voices with humor and zero handholding. Listen to hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube.

Let's see. If I move the snowblower into the bathroom, move the skis and Christmas decorations into the dining room, will that give me room for the lawnmower? Kayak and kids' bikes? As the seasons change, so do your storage needs. So how do you make space for the new season ahead? It's easy with access storage.

Access storage has convenient locations near you with flexible and affordable storage solutions to store all your winter year until next year. Try four weeks free today. Visit access storage.ca. As you've probably noticed, we've been trying something new with our headlines. Crooked's Washington correspondent Matt Berg will be back on Wednesday. But for now, here's what else we're following today. Headlines. Are Democrats waiting for Americans to get hurt, to get killed,

before they actually put your security before those who have come to this country unlawfully and illegally? I hope that's not their position, but we can get to a better place if they would just come to their senses and negotiate after they open it up. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy went on Fox News Sunday to remind everyone that the Department of Homeland Security is still shut down. There's growing concern that the agency that's supposed to keep Americans safe here at home is closed while the U.S. is at war with Iran. Of course, when sharing those concerns, Duffy conveniently forgot that DHS has shut down partly because Americans were killed by the department's immigration. immigration officers. It's already been a month since funding for DHS expired, and it doesn't look like a deal is coming anytime soon. The board of the Kennedy Center is expected to vote on President

Trump's grand renovation plans today. Back in February, Trump announced his intention to close the center for two years starting July 4th for, quote, construction, revitalization, and complete rebuilding. Trump also removed 18 board members and replaced them with his own picks, like White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles and second lady Usha Vance. So his odds of getting those plans approved look pretty good. But Ohio Democratic representative Joyce Beatty is hoping to throw a wrench in things. Her position on the board is designated by Congress, and on Saturday, a federal judge ruled she must be included in this week's meeting.

The judge did not guarantee her right to vote, but he did rule she must be sent information about the renovation within 24 hours of the meeting. This is all happening as Trump confirmed plans to replace the center's head, Rick Grinnell, on Friday, using Trump's favorite platform for hiring and firing, true social. The Performing Arts Center will now be led by Matt Floka, who has been its vice president of facilities since 2024. Tomorrow is primary day in Illinois. Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker is running for a third term. Pritzker is also a potential Democratic presidential candidate for 2028.

There is a crowded field in the Senate race to replace Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who decided not to run for a sixth term. House representatives, Robin Kelly and Raja Krishna-Morthy, both gave up their seats to run for Durban's. Big money is being spent in these races. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, more than $50 million has been spent by super PACs and special interest groups in Chicago area congressional primaries. WBEZ Chicago found that a lot of that money has come from donors and groups with links to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or APAC. They've spent more than $13 million in these races. Support for Israel has become a major issue.

in the primary for Illinois's 9th Congressional District, specifically. Candidates including State Senator Laura Fine, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, and former journalist Kat Abugazale, are running to replace retiring representative Jan Chikowsky. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is back at it with the thinly veiled threats. Carr wrote on Twitter Saturday that broadcasters airing fake news

have, quote, A Chance Now to Correct Course before their license renewal. come up. Carr's warning followed a true social post by President Trump, who slammed the fake news media for negative coverage involving the Iran war. Trump directed his ire at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, which the FCC does not regulate. Car wrote in his own post, quote, broadcasters must operate in the public interest and they will lose their licenses if they do not. Public interest or Trump's interest. The threat received pushback from Democratic lawmakers. California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted, quote, if Trump doesn't like your coverage of the war,

his FCC will pull your broadcast license. That is flagrantly unconstitutional. In the lamenting words of Eminem, the FCC won't let me be, or let me be me. So let me see. They tried to shut me down on MTV, but it feels so empty, without me. And that's the news.

Before we go, we're less than nine months away from the midterms, and we have a lot of work that you can do right now. November will decide control of Congress, and if Trump maintains his Republican trifecta, and our friends at Votes of America are here to help. They'll give you tips on how, when, and where to donate to make sure your money goes the furthest, how to confidently talk to the people in your life about midterms and key issues, and opportunities to take action with your community in real life.

Go to Votesaveamerica.com and sign up to be a part of the work this year. Then send the sign-up link to Five Friends. Paid for by Vote Save America. Learn more at Votesaveamerica.com. This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates' committee. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, get pumped for March Madden. and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading,

and not just about how you can start filling out your men's and women's brackets today, and yes, your bracket will be destroyed in a week, but that's what's so fun about it. Like me, What Today is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston. And remember, watching college basketball at work is a time-honored American tradition. What Today is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Four. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer.

Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of News and Politics is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor. We had helped today from the Associated Press.

Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. If you love Positive America and what more of my political analysis, you should subscribe to my newsletter, the MessageBox. I'm Dan Pfeiffer, former senior advisor to Barack Obama, and in Message Box, I break down what's actually happening in politics and what it's going to take to beat Donald Trump, MAGA. If you follow every poll and every twist-in turn in the campaign,

message boxes for you. This isn't just hot takes. Every edition delivers clear analysis, behind-the-scenes insight and practical strategy you can actually use whether you're working on a race, organizing your community, or just trying to win the argument in your argument in your group chat. So if you're listening to this, hit pause, go to your browser and head to

Crooked.com slash yes we did because I have a special offer for crooked media fans. You get 20% off a message box for an entire year. So go to crooked.com slash yes we did.