Photo Credit: Alan Journet
Dozens of similar cases are cropping up around the country, with states and cities trying to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the expensive destruction wreaked by the climate crisis.
NOTE: Such a bill has been introduced by Senator Jeff Golden into the current Oregon Legislative Session: SB 679.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Aynsley O’Neill with Pat Parenteau, a former EPA regional counsel and emeritus professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
In 2021, Honolulu, Hawai’i, brought a lawsuit against a group of fossil fuel companies over the climate and environmental impacts of burning oil and gas. The case potentially makes the companies liable for over a billion dollars worth of damages.
Nearly 40 similar cases are now working their way through state courts across the country. Fossil fuel industry defendants appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to block the Honolulu case from forcing the companies to turn over records and go through a trial.
But the justices declined the industry’s requests and are allowing the cases to move forward in the lower courts for now.
