Friends,
Join
us for the annual Interdependence Day visit to the National Security Agency,
Fort Meade, Maryland from 11 AM to noon on Wednesday, July 4. We are
meeting at 10 AM at the Gallagher Mansion, and can provide rides. We will
remember Reality Winner who is facing a five-year prison sentence for revealing
that the Russian government was trying to rig the 2016 presidential election.
Later
that day, we will have a picnic. RSVP to Max at 410-323-1607 or
mobuszewski2001 at Comcast dot net. Kagiso, Max
'Watershed
Moment for Climate Liability' as Rhode Island Files Historic Lawsuit Against 21
Big Oil Companies
commondreams.org
July 2, 2018
"Here we are—the smallest state, the Ocean State—taking on
the biggest, most powerful corporate polluters in the world," said the
state's attorney general. "They need to be held accountable."
In
what advocates are calling a "watershed moment" for climate
litigation, Rhode Island's Democratic Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin announced on Monday that the state has
filed a lawsuit against 21 major oil companies—including BP, Chevron,
ExxonMobil, and Shell—"for knowingly contributing to climate change, and
causing catastrophic consequences to Rhode Island, our economy, our communities,
our residents, our ecosystems."
"Despite
having clear evidence that its products were harming the planet, the fossil
fuel industry failed to warn consumers and regulators about the dangers. For
this, it must pay."
—Naomi Ages, Greenpeace
—Naomi Ages, Greenpeace
"This
lawsuit marks the first in the country filed on behalf of a state and its
citizens against Big Oil," Kilmartin declared. "For a very long time
there has been this perception that they, Big Oil, were too big to take on, but
here we are—the smallest state, the Ocean State—taking on the biggest, most
powerful corporate polluters in the world, because it's the right thing to do.
They need to be held accountable."
The
suit is supported by Rhode Island Gov. Gina
Raimondo, Reps. Jim Langevin and David Cicilline, and Sen. Sheldon
Whitehouse—all Democrats. Whitehouse, a congressional leader on climate
action, commended Kilmartin for "holding
some of the world's most powerful corporations responsible for the damage
they're inflicting on our coastal economy, infrastructure, and way of
life."
Bill
McKibben, cofounder of 350.org, called it a "major" development:
Major!
RI becomes first state to file suit against 21 oil and gas companies for
"knowingly contributing to climate change and catastrophic
consequences."
Little Rhody against Big Oil! http://www.riag.ri.gov/documents/KilmartinVChevronEtAl.pdf … @SenWhitehouse
The
filing comes on the heels of a similar pair of landmark lawsuits brought by two
cities in California, which U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup dismissed last week. Following
Kilmartin's announcement, Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center
for Climate Integrity, said the Rhode Island suit "takes climate liability
to another level, and puts Judge Alsup's recent decision in the rearview
mirror."
"When
state attorneys general start filing suit it's a game changer, as it was
with tobacco and currently is in opioid
litigation. In the same way, Rhode Island's lawsuit is a watershed moment for
climate liability," Wiles added. "Kilmartin recognized that if
polluters don't pay, then taxpayers will, and that is completely unacceptable."
As the complaint (pdf), filed in the Rhode
Island Superior Court, outlines:
Defendants, major corporate members of
the fossil fuel industry, have known for nearly half a century that unrestricted
production and use of their fossil fuel products create greenhouse gas
pollution that warms the planet and changes our climate. They have known for
decades that those impacts could be catastrophic and that only a narrow window
existed to take action before the consequences would be irreversible. They have
nevertheless engaged in a coordinated, multi-front effort to conceal and deny
their own knowledge of those threats, discredit the growing body of publicly
available scientific evidence, and persistently create doubt in the minds of
customers, consumers, regulators, the media, journalists, teachers, and the
public about the reality and consequences of the impacts of their fossil fuel
pollution.
Speaking
at the iconic Narragansett Sea Wall, Kilmartin explained the specific
allegations against these oil companies, including that
they "created, contributed to, and assisted in creating the
conditions in Rhode Island that constitute a public nuisance," and
"violated the state's Environmental Rights Act by polluting, impairing,
and destroying natural resources of the state."
"Rhode
Island seeks to ensure that the parties who have profited from externalizing
the responsibility for sea level rise, drought, extreme precipitation events,
heatwaves, other results of the changing hydrologic and meteorological regime
caused by global warming, and associated consequences of those physical and
environmental changes, bear the costs of those impacts on Rhode Island,"
the complaint concludes, "rather than the state, the local taxpayers,
residents, or broader segments of the public."
"Taxpayers
should not be expected to shoulder the steep financial burden of rebuilding
after super storms like Harvey and Irma, or the yet to be named storms that
will only increase in frequency if climate change continues unabated,"
asserted Greenpeace climate campaigner Naomi Ages, praising Kilmartin for his
leadership. "Despite having clear evidence that its products were harming
the planet, the fossil fuel industry failed to warn consumers and regulators
about the dangers. For this, it must pay."
This work
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
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