Pennsylvania County Takes On Big Oil As Climate Deception Cases Continue Mounting

A county in southeastern Pennsylvania just north of Philadelphia filed a climate accountability lawsuit on Monday against a handful of major oil and gas companies and their chief trade association, seeking to hold them liable for rising costs associated with recovering from and preparing for increasingly severe climate impacts such as extreme heat and intense storms and flooding.

“In recent years Bucks County has faced unprecedented weather events that have repeatedly put both our residents and our first responders at risk,” Diane Ellis-Marseglia, chair of the board of commissioners for Bucks County, Pennsylvania, said during a news conference announcing the new lawsuit, which accuses fossil fuel entities of lying about the climate consequences of their products to inflate sales and profits at the expense of communities now grappling with worsening climate disasters.

Bucks County is the first community in Pennsylvania to sue Big Oil over alleged climate deception. With the filing, the county joins more than three dozen municipalities and states across the US that are turning to the courts in attempts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in driving climate breakdown, particularly for historical and ongoing deceptive conduct that has stymied meaningful climate action and delayed the transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels.

The county’s lawsuit, filed March 25 in the Court of Common Pleas for Bucks County, brings state tort claims of public and private nuisance, trespass, strict liability, negligent product liability and negligence, and civil conspiracy. Named defendants include BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell, Phillips 66, and the American Petroleum Institute.

The 170-plus-page complaint lays out evidence explaining how the oil industry knew more than half a century ago about the potentially catastrophic impacts that unrestrained fossil fuel combustion would have on the climate system, yet despite these advanced warnings major oil companies and their trade associations deployed “tobacco-industry-style campaigns to deceive and mislead the public about the damaging nature of their fossil fuel products.” Initially the deceptive campaigns focused on trying to discredit climate science, and more recently they have evolved into disingenuously portraying the fossil fuel business as engaged in and leading solutions to mitigate the problem.

“These companies have known since at least the 1950s that their ways of doing business were having calamitous effects on our planet, and rather than change what they were doing or raise the alarm, they lied to all of us,” said Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo. “The taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for these companies and their greed.”

Climate in the Courts reached out to several of the defendants for comment. Neither API nor ExxonMobil immediately responded.

The county says their move to sue Big Oil is similar to other corporate accountability lawsuits it has brought against opioid companies, PFAS manufacturers, and social media titans. Deceptive business practices are at the heart of the allegations.

As the county’s complaint states in its opening: “Rather than warn consumers and the public, fossil fuel companies and their surrogates mounted a disinformation campaign to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change; create doubt in the minds of consumers, the media, teachers, and the public about the climate change impacts of burning fossil fuels; and delay the energy economy’s transition to a lower-carbon future. This successful climate deception campaign had the purpose and effect of inflating and sustaining the market for fossil fuels, which - in turn - drove up greenhouse gas emissions, accelerated global warming, and brought about devastating climate change impacts to Bucks County.”

The county has spent and will continue to spend “substantial sums” to deal with climate change impacts such as more intense storms, flooding and storm surge, saltwater intrusion, extreme heat, and droughts, the complaint asserts.

“This suit is our tool to recoup costs and fund public works projects like bolstering or replacing bridges, retrofitting county-owned buildings and commencing stormwater management projects, all of which will put us in the best possible position to weather what is certain to come,” said Commissioner Chair Ellis-Marseglia.

In terms of requested relief, the county seeks compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgements of profits, recovery of litigation costs and equitable relief including nuisance abatement.

The law firm DiCello Levitt is providing outside counsel for the county in this case. DiCello Levitt is also helping represent the city of Chicago in its climate lawsuit against Big Oil, which the city filed in February.

Bucks County’s filing this week suggests that the the litigation pressure on Big Oil is not letting up anytime soon, as climate deception cases in the US continue mounting.

“More than one in four people in the US now live in a community suing major fossil fuel companies to make them pay for their climate deception,” Richard Wiles, president of the climate accountability advocacy organization Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement. “Bucks County is the first Pennsylvania government to file a climate accountability lawsuit against Big Oil companies, but it likely won’t be the last.”