The District Of Columbia could literally not run without fossil fuels. All the cars and buses. All the people coming to tour the capital in fossil fueled vehicles and airplanes. All the government workers using fossil fueled travel. All the elected officials. Visitors and government folks coming from other countries. If there’s any one place playing this lawsuit game where the fossil fuels companies could say “nope, not selling fossil fuels in the area”, D.C. would be it
District of Columbia Sues BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell for Misleading Public on Climate Change
Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl A. Racine sued four of the world’s largest oil and gas companies on Thursday for misleading consumers about the impact their products have on the climate.
Coming just a day after Minnesota filed a similar suit, the District lawsuit contends that BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell have been aware since the 1950s of the threat posed by fossil fuels but launched public relations campaigns to manufacture doubt about the reality and seriousness of climate change. It seeks a court order for the companies to pay civil penalties, provide financial relief for District residents, and stop their disingenuous PR campaigns.
“For decades, these oil and gas companies spent millions to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of profits,†Racine said in a statement. “The defendants violated the District’s consumer protection law by concealing the fact that using fossil fuels threatens the health of District residents and the environment. [The Office of the Attorney General] filed this suit to end these disinformation campaigns and to hold these companies accountable for their deceptive practices.â€
For all the fancy rationale, this is simply a shakedown.
The lawsuit also maintains that the companies’ current marketing campaigns hype the relative “green†benefits of natural gas and other products, suggesting that they are “clean†and “emissions-reducing,†while concealing the fact that they still contribute significantly to the climate crisis.
And no more natural gas for D.C.
Start by refusing to sell to the D.C. government.
