Charleston wins early win in climate change lawsuit against ‘Big Oil’

A federal judge has given the city of Charleston an early win in its climate change lawsuit against “Big Oil” by ruling that the case will remain in South Carolina, where the city wants the issue fought.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel agreed on July 5 that Charleston’s bid to have fossil fuel companies pay for climate damages could proceed in state court, where it was initially filed.

City officials have welcomed the decision, which some legal experts say creates a more favorable stage for arguing that the multiple oil and gas companies that have operated in the United States for decades were aware of the harmful effects on the environment of their products.

“We completely agree with him,” said Chloe Field, a city spokeswoman. “The time has come to move on to trial in the Court of Common Pleas, where we dismissed this case nearly three years ago.

In 2020, the city of Charleston filed a lawsuit against two dozen major oil and pipeline companies, alleging that their products and the spread of misinformation about fossil fuels have caused climate change which has led to repetitive and disastrous flooding in the city .

Nationwide, nearly two dozen state and local governments are pursuing similar litigation against oil companies seeking climate-related damages. The only Southern government to file such a case is the City of Charleston.

To date, six federal appellate courts, including the Fourth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over South Carolina, and 15 federal district courts, have ruled against the fossil fuel industry’s arguments as it seeks federal jurisdictions. The result kept these complaints in state courts.

The Post and Courier has contacted all of the co-defendants named in the lawsuit. ThePhillips 66 Company, Marathon Petroleum Corporation and BP America all declined to comment, citing policies against discussing ongoing disputes.

Chevron Corporation Attorney Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. responded via email: Climate change is a global issue that requires a coordinated policy response, not a disjointed patchwork of lawsuits in state and local courts across multiple states .

That’s the same response the lawyer gave to reporters in April when his client suffered a major setback when the US Supreme Court rejected five appeals by Chevron and two other oil companies pushing for refer these types of lawsuits to federal court.

Local government plaintiffs involved in those appeals included the state of Rhode Island and municipalities or counties in California, Colorado, Hawaii and Maryland.

The Gergel ruling that sent Charleston’s lawsuit back from federal court to state court is the first since the US Supreme Court has dismissed the oil industry.

Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said the significance of the Charleston ruling is not just that the South Carolina state court will be more supportive of local governments, which is not always the case, but rather that state courts they are a more appropriate court place given past lawsuits.

He sees these climate liability claims as similar to those filed by state governments against big tobacco companies in the 1990s and, more recently, to lawsuits filed by state and local governments against opioid drug makers. In both cases, those filings remained in state court.

“Like the tobacco industry, the oil industry knew their products would kill people and cause tremendous damage,” Wiles said. “Just like tobacco, they lied about it with the express goal of creating confusion.”

There is evidence that South Carolinas support this type of lawsuit. In a poll of 954 registered South Carolina voters in the fall of 2022, the environmental group Climate Nexus found that 87 percent of voters said they would approve of their city or town “suing oil companies to hold them responsible for misleading the public about the impact their products had on the climate and for recouping the costs associated with climate adaptation and resilience.”

About 76% of self-identified Republicans said they would approve.

The survey was conducted by Climate Nexus, which provides independent market research. It was paid for by the Center for Climate Integrity, Wiles’ green group that advised some of the first states, like New Jersey and Massachusetts, to claim climate-related damages from big oil companies.

The city of Charleston filed lawsuits much later than these states and has had no interaction with downtown. When the case was filed in September 2020, Mayor John Tecklenburg said the city estimated the cost of keeping up with sea level rise at $2 billion.

The Center of Climate Integrity has become a target of so-called “Big Oil” for their efforts to organize and advise these lawsuits. Their name often appears on websites, such as InDepth Energy, which look like traditional news sites but are sites operated and paid for by the oil industry.

“These meritless lawsuits filed by local governments in state courts will do nothing to advance global climate solutions, do nothing to reduce emissions, and do nothing to address climate-related impacts,” wrote Boutrous, Chevron’s attorney.

Charleston’s argument is that the money awarded by the cause could have a huge impact in relieving the city from flooding. Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers is considering construction of a $1.1 billion seawall to protect the city’s lower peninsula. The Corps says the wall will reduce the risk of storm surge damage by more than 10 times its price.

More than half of the buildings on the peninsula, where the population is projected to double to nearly 70,000 people in the next 50 years, are located within the 100-year floodplain. Projected annual damage from coastal storms in Charleston is expected to reach up to $773 million over the next half-century, according to the Corps.

The July 5 ruling came right in the middle of the world’s hottest week in record history, a phenomenon scientists attribute to climate change driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.