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make polluters pay
Endless Stream of Climate Disasters Bolsters Demand to 'Make Polluters Pay'
"Ordinary people shouldn't pay for disasters they couldn't prevent," said one group. "But Big Oil should"
Sep 30, 2024
In the wake of one of the hottest summers ever recorded in the United States and the deadly destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene, climate defenders on Monday urged Congress to pass recently introduced legislation that would make polluters pay into a $1 trillion fund to finance efforts to combat the planetary emergency.
"Emissions from burning oil, gas, and coal are cooking the planet and super-charging deadly heatwaves, floods, and storms," the international NGO Global Witness said in a statement. "Several major fossil fuel firms knew for decades about the climate impacts of their products, but they ignored scientific advice and denied the climate crisis was happening."
"The Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act can help redress this injustice by making fossil fuel companies pay for some of the damage they're doing to America," the group added. "This would create a $1 trillion fund that would pay for climate disaster relief and efforts to help keep us cool and safe. They can afford it—in 2023 the top five oil and gas producers in the U.S. made over $74 billion in profits."
Introduced last month by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Judy Chu (D-Calif.), the Polluters Pay Climate Fund is backed by dozens of climate and environmental justice groups.
"From sweltering heat waves to rising sea levels to ever more intense storms, our planet is screaming out every day for us to take action on global warming," Van Hollen said at the time of the bill's introduction. "And after fueling the climate crisis for decades, big polluters can no longer run from their responsibility to address the harm they have done."
"The principle behind this legislation is simple but very powerful—polluters should pay to clean up the mess they made and build a more resilient future, and those who have polluted the most should pay the most," the senator added.
With an eye on next month's U.S. presidential election, campaigners demanded a president who will make polluters pay for fueling the climate crisis. With former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, running on a "
drill, baby, drill" platform and previously calling climate change a "Chinese hoax," activists have focused on imploring Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris to make fossil fuel companies pay for their damages.
"We need a president who is willing to take on Big Oil. A president who will make polluters pay for the damage they've done to our climate," the Make Polluters Pay campaign said in a video posted last week on social media.
"As California's attorney general, Kamala Harris prosecuted big polluters like BP and Chevron and launched an investigation into ExxonMobil's climate lies," the video continues. "As vice president, she cast the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, helping lower energy costs and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."
"Kamala Harris says she'll take on corporate price gouging and hold Big Oil accountable. Donald Trump? He's asking the oil companies for bribes," the video adds, referring to his promise to fossil fuel executives that he would gut the Biden administration's climate regulations if they donated $1 billion to his campaign.
Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn cited a December 2023 survey conducted by his group and Data for Progress that found 64% of U.S. voters—including 89% of Democrats, 58% of Democrats, and 42% of Republicans—are more likely to vote for a candidate "who will make polluters pay for climate damages."
The campaigners' calls come as extreme weather fueled by the burning of fossil fuels
wreaks havoc around the world, including in the United States, where Hurricane Helene and its remnants tore a deadly path of destruction from the Florida Gulf Coast to the mountains of North Carolina. The storm has claimed at least 121 lives across the Southeast.
"It's obscene that communities across North Carolina are suffering and dying from the reality of the climate emergency while Donald Trump denies that it even exists," Brett Hartl, political director at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, said in a statement.
"While roads, bridges, and entire towns are being washed away, Trump and Project 2025 plan to gut [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] and roadblock every agency from confronting the climate crisis," he said, referring to the right-wing blueprint for overhauling the federal government. "Vice President Harris will act on climate change, and she'll hold the polluters that caused it accountable for their willful destruction."
Responding to Helene's devastation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media Monday that "I'm heartsick for the families who lost their homes and their loved ones."
"It's a sad reality that this hurricane rapidly intensified into a powerful Category 4 storm because of climate change," she added. "We must do more to confront the climate crisis as we rebuild."
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Big Oil's Un-American Scheme to Price-Gouge Consumers
From ExxonMobil's long-running climate denial to Pioneer's recent price-fixing, it's clear this rogue industry's business model is deny, deceit, and delay.
May 09, 2024
You know how the oil industry is always saying the U.S needs to drill more to lower gas prices and protect energy independence? Well it turns out they've actually been scheming behind the scenes with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to do the exact opposite.
A bombshell complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week reveals that Scott Sheffield, the former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources—one of the largest oil producers in the Permian Basin—colluded with OPEC officials in an attempt to artificially limit supply and jack up prices.
The FTC's complaint alleges that Sheffield exchanged private WhatsApp messages with leaders at OPEC, assuring them that Pioneer and other Permian companies would pump the brakes on output in order to keep prices high. He even threatened to "punish" any companies that dared to ramp up production. I don't know about you, but to me it's hard to imagine anything more un-American and anti-competitive than that.
The FTC complaint is the latest proof: The fossil fuel industry will always put their greed above American consumers and fair competition.
This private coordination with OPEC glaringly contrasts with Big Oil's public rhetoric blaming the Biden administration for constraining U.S. production and raising energy costs—a bogus talking point that Republicans have been parroting for months now. The bad faith has been laid bare: Oil executives themselves are colluding with a foreign cartel to throttle supply and price-gouge American consumers to pad their own pockets.
These revelations fit into a broader pattern of the fossil fuel industry's deception and abuse. Just one day before the FTC filing, the Senate Budget Committee held an explosive hearing detailing how oil giants have waged a decades-long, industry-wide disinformation campaign to downplay the catastrophic climate damage that they knew their products would cause, all while raking in record profits. From ExxonMobil's long-running climate denial to Pioneer's recent price-fixing, it's clear this rogue industry's business model is deny, deceit, and delay.
Here's the kicker: Big Oil is about to get a whole lot more powerful. With it looking like the Exxon-Pioneer merger is going to move forward (without Scott Sheffield), and Chevron pursuing a $50 billion takeover of Hess, a few mega-corporations are rapidly consolidating to control our energy grid. Studies show that mergers like these are pretty certain to squash competition, send prices soaring, and concentrate massive political influence to block necessary climate action.
That's the grim future we face if we let them get away with it: A world where a handful of greedy oil oligarchs collude with OPEC to bleed us dry at the pump while knowingly burning our planet. Fortunately, cities and states are fighting back with lawsuits and legislation to make polluters pay for their lies and damages.
Last year, California joined the fight, suing Exxon, Shell, BP, Chevron, and their lobbying arm for deliberately deceiving the public about fossil fuels' climate impacts, aiming to force them to cough up billions for disaster recovery. And right now, states like Vermont are advancing bills to create climate "superfunds" funded by Big Oil's ill-gotten gains. In fact, New York just passed their polluter pay bill in the Senate this week, bringing New Yorkers and the nation one step closer to accountability for Big Oil.
But in order to truly rein in this reckless industry, we need help at the federal level. At a minimum, Congress should eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and strengthen antitrust laws. At the Department of Justice, leaders must investigate the industry's long history of spreading disinformation. And in the White House, President Joe Biden should declare a climate emergency and wield his powers to rapidly increase the production of clean energy resources.
For decades, Big Oil has ransacked our wallets, ravaged our environment, and rigged our democracy. The FTC complaint is the latest proof: The fossil fuel industry will always put their greed above American consumers and fair competition. It's time to make polluters pay.
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Supreme Court Rejects Bid by API, Exxon, and Koch to Kill Climate Case
"Big Oil companies will continue fighting to escape justice, but for the third time in a year, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied their desperate pleas," said one campaigner.
Jan 08, 2024
For the third time in less than a year, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a key case against the fossil fuel industry to proceed in state court, delivering a win for the movement to make polluters pay for driving the climate emergency.
"This decision is another step forward for Minnesota's efforts to hold fossil fuel giants accountable for their climate lies and the harm they've caused," said Center for Climate Integrity president Richard Wiles, pointing to the previous denials of other cases last April and May.
"Big Oil companies will continue fighting to escape justice, but for the third time in a year, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied their desperate pleas to overturn the unanimous rulings of every single court to consider this issue," he continued.
"It's time for these polluters to give up their failed arguments to escape state courts."
As legal leaders of dozens of U.S. states and municipalities have launched climate lawsuits in recent years, the fossil fuel industry has attempted to evade accountability by shifting the cases to federal court—a strategy that's proven unsuccessful.
Wiles argued that "after three strikes, it's time for these polluters to give up their failed arguments to escape state courts and prepare to face the evidence of their climate deception at trial."
The U.S. Supreme Court's Monday decision came in a case filed in 2020 by Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute (API), based on the state's consumer protection laws.
"The fraud, deceptive advertising, and other violations of Minnesota state law and common law that the lawsuit shows they perpetrated have harmed Minnesotans' health and our state's environment, infrastructure, and economy," Ellison said at the time.
The justices declined Big Oil's request to review the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' March decision that the case belongs in state court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, an appointee of former GOP President Donald Trump, would have taken the case, in line with his position last year.
"I appreciate the court's consideration and decision," Ellison said in a statement Monday. "It aligns with 25 federal court decisions across the country, all of which have found that cases like ours rest on these defendants' failures to warn and their campaigns of deception around their products' contributions to the climate crisis. The court's decision confirms these cases are properly filed in state courts."
"Taken together, the defendants' behavior has delayed the transition to alternative energy sources and a lower-carbon economy, resulting in dire impacts on Minnesota's environment and enormous costs to Minnesotans and the world," he stressed. "Now, the case can move forward in state court, where it was properly filed, and we can begin to hold these companies accountable for their wrongful conduct."
Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for Fossil Free Media and the Make Polluters Pay campaign, declared Monday that "today's decision is an important step forward for accountability and justice."
"The Supreme Court has now laid out an unmistakable path forward," she added, "for not only Minnesota's consumer protection case against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and API, but the dozens of cases against the fossil fuel industry popping up across the county."
This post has been updated with comment from Keith Ellison.
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