Ask Slashdot: Can a City Really Sue an Oil Company For Climate Change? (wired.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The city of Richmond, California, is suing Chevron, its largest employer and its largest public-safety scourge. But while industrial accidents like refinery fires are commonplace in the low-lying industrial town, that's not what this lawsuit is about. Richmond and six other California cities are suing oil companies for contributing to the changing climate, which threatens to inundate their shorelines. "In an era of federal deregulation and rising seas, these lawsuits feel increasingly urgent," writes deputy editor Adam Rogers. "The question is whether the courts will even see them as plausible."

The lawsuits face two big legal hurdles: getting scientific proof that climate change (and specific companies causing climate change) are to blame for the cities' woes, along with overcoming oil companies' contention that cities can't sue them at all, since at the federal level, they're beholden to the Clean Air Act. But the urban plaintiffs have a plan for that. They are not asking for new regulations or bans; they're asking for reparations for a problem they say oil companies willfully hid from them. "Oil and gas, like cigarettes, are products. The companies that sell them are liable for the damages they cause," says Sharon Eubanks, an attorney at Bordas & Bordas who was lead counsel in the Justice Department's RICO case against the Philip Morris tobacco company. "They have misled the public about the product's dangers."

Comments

Re:Only if they don't burn any themselves

[_Sharp'r_]

The Feds only make 18 cents per gallon of gas. Compared to that, the State of CA makes 58 cents a gallon. The gas station (Chevron only owns 5% of their branded stations) makes 3-5 cents a gallon in profit. Chevron makes maybe 10 cents a gallon in profit, assuming they refine the crude and distribute the gas.

So the city should sue themselves and the State of CA first, since they're the ones actually profiting from gasoline sales.

Re:Only if they don't burn any themselves

[BlueStrat]

Yes, you're right. Guns don't kill people; people kill people.
Also, drug sellers aren't killing people, it's the users that are killing themselves.

Although you post in sarcasm, you are precisely correct on both points.

Guns in civilian hands in the US have been around since there was a US, the relatively recent problems are societal. Although, gun homicides in general in the US are down 50% over the last 25 years according to official government data despite a sharp uptick in firearm sales.

The War On (some) Drugs has been an abject failure and was originally initiated to oppress racial minorities. Education and treatment rather than tossing users in prison would quickly cause drug dealers and the cartels that supply them to find themselves without sufficient customers to make it a worthwhile endeavor.

Strat