The nation’s biggest oil companies must be very scared that, very soon, one of the many lawsuits accusing them of lying to the public about climate change will succeed, and they’ll be made to pay billions of dollars in climate damages, adaptation costs, and public education campaigns to correct the lies they told.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who sued Exxon and other oil majors back in 2020. Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed this lawsuit in the dark ages: 2020. In it, he accused ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Flint Hills Resources, and the American Petroleum Institute of “deliberately undermining the science of climate change, purposefully downplaying the role that the purchase and consumption of their products played in causing climate change … [and] failing to fully inform the consumers and the public of their understanding that without swift action, it would be too late to ward off the devastation.”
By covering up what it knew about climate change, Ellison’s lawsuit alleges the oil companies violated Minnesota laws against consumer fraud, false advertising, deceptive trade practices, fraud, misrepresentation, and failure to warn.
As a remedy, Ellison’s lawsuit is seeking money to help cover climate-related costs in Minnesota, the return of profits tied to the oil companies’ alleged deception, and a court-ordered public education campaign correcting the record on climate change. (Remember this, it will become important soon).
The case has spent the last six years tangled up in procedural purgatory. But last month, the Minnesota Supreme Court declined to take up the oil industry’s latest appeal. And on Monday, the stay in the case dissolved, meaning Minnesota’s lawsuit could finally start moving toward discovery—the juicy part of the legal process where companies may have to turn over internal documents and answer questions under oath.
So naturally, that’s the moment the Trump administration swooped in with a lawsuit seeking to kill Minnesota’s case.
The DOJ’s case is built on a lie
The DOJ’s complaint is an incredible piece of rage bait for anyone following these cases closely. It is, in essence, an exercise in the propagandistic practice of repeating something false over and over and over in the hopes that eventually, people will start to believe it.
The falsehood that the DOJ’s complaint is built on is that Minnesota’s lawsuit is a covert plot to set national energy policy. In paragraph after paragraph, the DOJ claims Minnesota’s lawsuit is seeking to “regulate global greenhouse gas emissions,” which falls under federal authority, and therefore must be dismissed. I thought about listing all the times here, but I will spare you. You can just
