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You have watched as radical progressive AGs like Letitia James (NY) and DAs like Alvin Bragg (New York County, NY) and Fani Willis (Fulton County, GA) have used legal warfare, known as “lawfare” to attack President Donald Trump. But the 45th president isn’t the only target of radical progressive lawfare. James and others are now targeting oil and food companies in an attempt to drive the industries out of business, and to pad their budgets with money won in legal battles. Kevin Stocklin reports in The Epoch Times:
As U.S. oil, gas, and coal companies struggle under an array of regulations and permitting roadblocks, they also face new challenges from climate activists in the form of lawsuits, fines, taxes, and shareholder activism from blue-state pension funds.
Meanwhile, U.S. states increasingly are set against each other, with liberal states leading the charge against fossil fuel companies, while red states attempt to defend them.
Starting in 2018, states including New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Delaware, Connecticut, and California, as well as the District of Columbia, began filing lawsuits against energy giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Sunoco, BP, and others.
Oil companies also face legal action from dozens of cities, including Honolulu; Chicago; Baltimore; New York City; Charleston, South Carolina; San Francisco; Oakland, California; and Boulder, Colorado.
Analysts say there are multiple goals driving these suits.
“It’s partly ideological, trying to drive these companies out of business,” Kenny Stein, policy vice president at the Institute for Energy Research, told The Epoch Times. He also said he believes it has to do with consumers’ use of fossil fuels.
“These governments are trying to mandate that people use less oil and less natural gas, but people want to heat their homes as much as they want, they want to drive as far as they want,” Mr. Stein said. “If the state banned the sale of oil, the population would revolt, so this is their backdoor way of trying to impose their will.”
Many of the climate lawsuits assert that pollution caused by oil companies creates a “public nuisance” and the companies intentionally deceived the public about the harmful effects when they caused global temperatures to rise.
The activist organization Climate Analytics tried to calculate the alleged damages.
“Between 1985 and 2018, we estimate partial damages of the combined CO2 emissions from 25 companies—oil and gas carbon majors—of about $20 trillion USD,” Climate Analytics states.
Meanwhile, on May 30, Vermont became the first state to pass a law that forces oil companies to pay for damage caused by “extreme weather events,” such as floods. According to this law, Vermont will tally the cost to residents of extreme weather events over the past 30 years; any company that has released more than 1 billion metric tons of CO2 from 1995 to 2024 will be forced to pay its share of that cost into a state climate superfund.
But it’s not just about money.
“This is simply a strategy for the left to accomplish what they’ve been unable to do in Congress through the ballot box, and that is to implement a nationwide climate policy that’s consistent with their green agenda,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Marshall and 18 other attorneys general—all from red states—appealed to the Supreme Court on May 22, asking the justices to rule on whether individual states and cities can “assert the power to dictate the future of the American energy industry.
“Their actions imperil access to affordable energy everywhere and inculpate every State and indeed every person on the planet,” the attorneys general wrote. “Consequently, [they] threaten not only our system of federalism and equal sovereignty among States, but our basic way of life.”States are not just suing oil and gas companies; they are also lodging climate-related lawsuits against food companies.
In February, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued JBS USA Food Co., a U.S. subsidiary of the Brazil-based JBS Group, the world’s largest meat processor, alleging that the firm misled the public about its environmental impact and that “beef production emits the most greenhouse gasses of any major food commodity.”
Action Line: The ever-widening circle of targets for the radical left’s lawfare crusades indicates that they’ll use this weapon against anyone who stands in their way or anyone they can profit from. Click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.
E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy
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