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Exxon, BP lose second attempt at federal appeal against Baltimore climate change lawsuit
Kaieteur News – Oil giants, ExxonMobil, BP PLC and Chevron Corp, have lost their second federal appeal against a lawsuit by the city of Baltimore seeking to hold them responsible for climate change.
On Thursday, April 7, 2022, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled and sent back the lawsuit once again to the State court, as opposed to the matter being heard in the federal court – like the oil giants desired.
With the court’s ruling, the city of Baltimore has once again, won the legal battle to have its climate change lawsuit against more than 20 energy firms returned to state court, where it believes it has a better chance of obtaining damages for the harms it maintains the fossil fuel firms knowingly have inflicted on the city and its residents over decades.
According to a Reuters article, the Fourth Circuit “resoundingly” rejected the companies’ arguments that Baltimore’s state-law claims were inherently federal because it sought to hold them liable based on the production and sale of oil and gas abroad. The oil giants argued that the Clean Air Act is the exclusive vehicle to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and that Baltimore’s state-law claims conflicted with federal interests.
Nevertheless, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled that Baltimore’s case is built on state, not federal law and should be heard in state, not the federal court.
In fact, Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Roger Gregory said the city’s lawsuit had nothing to do with federal common law and that the companies “do not point to any significant conflict existing between Maryland law and their purported federal interests.”
“The impacts of climate change undoubtedly have local, national, and international ramifications,” he wrote for a three-judge panel. “But those consequences do not necessarily confer jurisdiction upon federal courts carte blanche.”
Baltimore’s 2018 complaint claims the companies deceived the public about the dangers associated with their fossil-fuel products, which contributed to greenhouse-gas pollution and climate change.
The lawsuit alleges that the energy giants created a public nuisance and should be forced to cover the climate-change costs the city faces, including increased infrastructure spending.
Reuters reported that Sara Gross, who heads the affirmative litigation division of the Baltimore City Department of Law, in a statement called the ruling “a big win for Baltimore’s residents, workers, businesses and taxpayers.”
On the other hand, ExxonMobil, attorney Kannon Shanmugam, argued for all the companies, in a statement calling the claims “baseless and without merit” and saying it was evaluating its next steps.
Last Thursday’s ruling marked the second time the Richmond, Virginia-based court tended the case to the State court, amid a broad effort by the oil companies to force about two dozen similar cases by state and local governments that were filed in state courts into federal court.
In 2020, the Fourth Circuit had sent the Baltimore case back to state court, but the Supreme Court in May 2021 had ruled that the Fourth Circuit did not correctly analyze the issues and sent the case back. As such, the Fourth Circuit heard the case for the second time. This resulted in the case being sent back to the state court. Moreover, the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February became the first federal appeal court after that ruling to remand a lawsuit after it sent a case by Colorado municipalities back to state court.
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