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center for climate integrity
Most US Voters Want Plastics Industry Held Accountable for Recycling Deception: Poll
"No one is really OK with a corporation lying to consumers. What jumps out here is the overwhelming agreement among voters that it's deceptive and wrong for companies to label a product as recyclable when it's not."
Sep 09, 2024
Most U.S. voters would support officials in their state taking legal action against the plastics and fossil fuel industries for creating plastic pollution, based on evidence that they misled the public about the viability of recycling their products, according to a poll released Monday.
The poll, conducted by Data for Progress and the Center for Climate Integrity, follows a report CCI released in February that showed decades of industry deception about the recyclability of plastics and a yearslong, ongoing investigation by the California attorney general, which could lead to a lawsuit.
The poll indicates that 70% of voters support such a lawsuit and even 54% of Republicans do so.
"Regardless of your politics, no one is really OK with a corporation lying to consumers," Davis Allen, a CCI researcher, said in a statement. "What jumps out here is the overwhelming agreement among voters that it's deceptive and wrong for companies to label a product as recyclable when it's not."
Allen's colleague Alyssa Johl, a CCI vice president, argued that the poll bolsters the case that attorneys general should pursue lawsuits against industry for its role in creating plastic waste and deceiving the public about recycling.
"As we're watching to see what comes from California's investigation, it's clear that the public is very concerned about the plastic waste crisis and would support holding Big Oil and the plastics industry accountable for the fraud of plastic recycling," she said. "Any attorney general or public official who is considering action on this issue should know that both the law and public opinion are on their side."
📣 New poll from us & @DataProgress:
The vast majority of U.S. voters — including 54% of Republicans — support legal action against Big Oil & the plastics industry for lying about the viability of plastic recycling and causing the plastic waste crisis. https://t.co/YFjmxzeOYT pic.twitter.com/0oHAMHPtem
— Center for Climate Integrity (@climatecosts) September 9, 2024
The survey, conducted on 1,231 web panel respondents, also included a number of other plastics-related questions. More than two-thirds of respondents, after being prompted with information during the course of the survey, said the plastics industry should have "a great deal of responsibility" to address the plastic crisis, while 59% said the same about the fossil fuel industry. The industries are in fact connected; almost all plastics are made out of fossil fuels.
More than 60% of respondents strongly agreed—and 85% agreed at least "somewhat"—that it was deceptive to put the "chasing arrows" symbol on products that were not in fact recyclable. California restricted the practice with a 2021 law, and the Federal Trade Commission is revising its guidelines following recommendations issued last year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which said the use of the symbol can be "deceptive or misleading."
The poll showed that Americans tend to overestimate the amount of plastic being recycled. The average respondent guessed that about 45% of plastic gets recycled, when in fact a 2021 Greenpeace report indicated that the real figure is about 6%.
Despite the negative impacts of plastic waste, plastic production continues to increase worldwide. About 220 million tons of plastic waste are expected to be generated this year alone. Last week, a study in Nature, a leading journal, estimated global plastic waste emissions at about 52 million metric tons per year.
Recycling plastic is logistically challenging because many products are made of composites of different types of plastic and because the quality of the material goes down with each generation of use.
The poll comes out during the final stages of negotiations on a global plastics treaty, which has been in the works for several years. Ahead of United Nations General Assembly meetings this week, a group of celebrities including Bette Midler called for strong action on plastics in an open letter published by Greenpeace.
The final global plastics treaty negotiations will be held in Busan, South Korea starting November 25. The previous major round of negotiations, in April, was dominated by corporate lobbyists, advocates said. Activists and Indigenous leaders were also left out of a smaller meeting in Thailand last month, drawing criticism.
The call for accountability for plastics producers comes as the fossil fuel industry already faces legal action for its role in perpetuating the climate crisis. Dozens of cities and states have filed suits. None has yet reached the trial stage. The one that is closest to doing so, City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco et al., has been the subject of political and legal wrangling, with the industry trying to have the suit dismissed.
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Puerto Rico Sues Oil Giants Over Decades of Climate Deception
One advocate said the island "has paid a terrible price for Big Oil's climate lies, and now officials are taking necessary action to hold these corporations accountable and make polluters pay for damages they knowingly caused."
Jul 16, 2024
Puerto Rico's secretary of justice on Monday filed a climate liability lawsuit against fossil fuel companies including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil Corporation, Shell, and TotalEnergies in the Court of First Instance of San Juan.
By filing the suit, which seeks at least $1 billion in compensation from the defendants, Domingo Emanuelli Hernández, the chief legal officer in the U.S. commonwealth, followed in the footsteps of dozens of U.S. municipal and state leaders.
"These companies have known internally for decades that greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuel products would have adverse impacts on the global climate and sea level," Emanuelli said in a statement in Spanish. "Armed with that knowledge, they took steps to protect their own assets from climate damage and risks, through immense internal investment in research, infrastructure improvements, and plans to exploit new business opportunities in a warming world."
"However, they did not truthfully warn Puerto Rican consumers about the consequences of using and burning fossil fuels on the island, as well as their impact on the environment," he continued. "It is time for them to mitigate the damage they have caused to Puerto Rico and not let Puerto Ricans foot the bill."
Emanuelli now joins the attorneys general of the District of Columbia, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont, who have all launched similar suits, and Michigan's AG, who is planning one. There are also several cases brought by municipalities, including one previously filed in Puerto Rico.
As E&E Newsreported Tuesday, "More than a dozen municipalities filed suit in 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, asking the industry for compensation related to the 2017 hurricane season that killed thousands of people and left much of the island without power for nearly a year."
Scientists with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have said that 2023 was the hottest year in human history and 2024 is on track to continue that trend, with the January through June global surface temperature already ranked warmest in the 175-year record. NOAA has also warned that the current Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be "extraordinary."
Welcoming Emanuelli's new move to protect the Caribbean island, Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement Tuesday that "Puerto Rico has paid a terrible price for Big Oil's climate lies, and now officials are taking necessary action to hold these corporations accountable and make polluters pay for damages they knowingly caused."
"As communities suffer from more and more unnatural disasters fueled by Big Oil's climate deception, it's more important than ever for officials to stand up to the fossil fuel industry on behalf of their communities," he added. "The people of Puerto Rico deserve their day in court to hold Big Oil accountable."
Along with civil climate suits filed by attorneys general and local leaders, some campaigners and lawmakers have demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice take legal action against fossil fuel companies—particularly given the recent findings of a three-year congressional probe.
As Common Dreamsreported last month, there is also a nascent movement in the United States urging prosecutors to consider hitting oil majors with criminal charges for deaths related to the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
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Under Pressure From Big Oil, Supreme Court Requests Biden Position on Climate Suit
A monumental case against Big Oil could go to a jury trial. But the industry has undertaken a "stunning and unprecedented campaign" to have the case dismissed, according to the The Guardian.
Jun 10, 2024
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday asked the Biden administration for its position on a climate lawsuit against Big Oil following a pressure campaign the industry has mounted to have the court dismiss it.
The case, brought by the city and county of Honolulu, is one of dozens of state and local lawsuits seeking to hold Big Oil to account for the climate impact that its products have had and for the deception and disinformation used to sell them. The industry could be found liable for many billions of dollars if such cases reach jury trials, and so a group of companies has filed a petition, supported by legal briefs and a public advertising campaign, to the Supreme Court to hear their case for dismissal.
The Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) wrote Monday that the solicitor general, the administration lawyer who will handle the request, should advise the Supreme Court that states and municipalities can file these cases in state courts—to ignore Big Oil's petition, effectively.
"Big Oil companies are fighting desperately to avoid trial in lawsuits like Honolulu's, which would expose the evidence of the fossil fuel industry's climate lies for the entire world to see," Richard Wiles, the group's president, said in a statement. "Communities everywhere are paying dearly for the massive damages caused by Big Oil's decadeslong climate deception. The people of Honolulu and other communities across the country deserve their day in court to hold these companies accountable."
In November, the Hawaii Supreme Court rejected a previous Big Oil effort to stop the case, which set the table for a potentially momentous jury trial—none of the climate lawsuits have yet reached that stage, and City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco et al. could be the first. The industry had tried to argue that the lawsuit sought to regulate interstate and international carbon emissions, which states don't have the right to do, and thus the case couldn't be brought in state court. The court ruled the case wasn't about the regulation of carbon emissions.
Big Oil then filed its Supreme Court petition, backed by a major campaign: right-wing groups have not only filed amicus briefs with the court but also mounted an unusually public campaign calling for the court to dismiss Honolulu and other such cases.
"This looks to be the most aggressive campaign yet to influence the court on behalf of Big Oil," Kert Davies, CCI's director of special investigations, toldE&E News. "The fossil fuel industry and its allies are clearly threatened by these legal efforts to hold them accountable, and they're going to unprecedented lengths to send out distress signals in the hope they'll be rescued from standing trial."
"Far-right fossil fuel allies have launched a stunning and unprecedented campaign pressuring the Supreme Court to shield fossil fuel companies from litigation that could cost them billions of dollars," according toThe Guardian, which tied the campaign to Leonard Leo, the so-called architect of the Supreme Court, thanks to his influence in conservative legal circles and over Donald Trump, who appointed three of the current justices as president.
An ad produced by the Alliance for Consumers, a nonprofit that has ties to Leo, posits the Supreme Court as the "solution" to the overreach of "left-wing officials" who are pushing a political agenda through the courts by misusing public nuisance lawsuits.
Progressive activists, backed by the liberal dark money machine, are weaponizing a form of legal case (that was intended for use strictly on small, local issues) to advance their agenda nationwide.
Here’s how their scheme operates ⬇️https://t.co/Cix47F15I1 pic.twitter.com/hUxLNpWJYf
— Alliance For Consumers (@for_consumers) May 1, 2024
Conservatives have also published opinion pieces in favor of the Big Oil petition in outlets such as Bloomberg Law, The Hill, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal, which titled its piece "Honolulu Tries to Mug Energy Companies."
"I have never, ever seen this kind of overt political campaign to influence the court like this," Patrick Parenteau, a professor at Vermont Law School, toldThe Guardian.
The fact that the Supreme Court asked the solicitor general for the administration's position indicates that some justices are interested in the case—the court throws out thousands of petitions a year without asking for such input.
CCI, like the Hawaii Supreme Court, finds no merit in the industry's legal argument that Honolulu is an attempt to regulate emissions.
"Lawsuits like Honolulu's are not seeking to solve climate change or regulate emissions—these plaintiffs simply want Big Oil to stop lying and pay their fair share of the damages they knowingly caused," Alyssa Johl, the group's vice president of legal and general counsel. "The solicitor general should make clear that federal laws don't preempt the ability of communities to hold companies accountable for their deceptive claims under state law."
In a similar case last year, Biden's solicitor general sided with Colorado municipalities that had filed suit and rejected the arguments in a Big Oil petition, urging the Supreme Court not to take up Big Oil's petition. The court followed the administration's advice on that and a few related cases. Roughly 40 states and municipalities have filed such suits since 2017.
President Biden has pledged to "strategically support" climate lawsuits against polluters, and last year the Justice Department filed a Supreme Court brief in support of communities seeking to hold Big Oil accountable in state court.
https://t.co/yw1YulU9fM
— Center for Climate Integrity (@climatecosts) June 10, 2024
There remains the possibility that the federal government itself could bring a case against Big Oil for propagating disinformation and blocking a green transition. Last month, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the industry for those alleged crimes, following a three-year probe that their congressional committees had conducted.
Monday's Supreme Court request of the solicitor general notes that Justice Samuel Alito didn't take part in the considerations of the case—"probably because he owned stock in ConocoPhillips, a defendant in the case," according to The Guardian.
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