Big Oil companies ask judge to throw out Bucks County climate change lawsuit

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Lawyers for Big Oil companies are asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by Bucks County earlier this year , which claims the organizations were aware of climate risks but withheld information to protect profits.

Bucks County is seeking to recoup unspecified damages from Big Oil companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips for storm repairs and remediation. The suit claims climate change, due to fossil fuels, is the root cause of more frequent severe storms and floods.

The county argues the companies were aware of climate risks for more than half a century but hid the research to protect profits.

A new brief filed by the defendants argues the suit should be dismissed, calling it “part of a decades-long series of ill-conceived climate change-related actions.”

It points to previous court rulings that say state law cannot be applied to “the alleged consequences of global climate change.”

The brief says Buck’s County’s claims are preempted by the federal Clean Air Act, arguing that allowing the suit to go forward would “usurp the powers of the legislative and executive branches to set climate policy” beyond the boundaries of Bucks County and Pennsylvania.

The energy companies also argue each of Bucks County’s claims depend “ultimately on the worldwide emission of greenhouse [gases].” And, it says, those emissions “are the result of billions of daily choices — over more than a century and around the world.”

Republican Bucks County Commissioner Gene Digirolamo initially supported the suit but switched his position days after it was announced. The county said DiGirolamo’s stance doesn’t change the board’s view that climate change is “the most important issue of our time.”

Bucks County said officials cannot comment further on pending litigation.

Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., counsel for Chevron Corporation, responded with this statement:

“Addressing climate change requires a coordinated international policy response, not meritless local litigation over lawful and essential energy production. This lawsuit is baseless, just like the identical claims dismissed by the Second Circuit in New York City and state court judges in Delaware and Maryland; a Baltimore city judge recently held that ‘global pollution-based complaints were never intended by Congress to be handled by individual states.’ In addition, there is no record of Bucks County’s lawsuit being publicly approved and consequently the case cannot move forward.”