Left-wing climate activists are using the lawfare system to stifle American energy, with “green” legal advocacy groups taking companies to court so they can influence environmental policy without going through the actual legislative process.
EarthRights, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that works to secure “environmental justice and human rights protections globally,” is representing Colorado’s Boulder County, San Miguel County, and the City of Boulder against ExxonMobil and Suncor in a case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court last month.
In their initial 2018 lawsuit filed in Colorado district court, the counties and city sued the energy giants for allegedly deceiving the public on the harm caused by fossil fuels, seeking damages for that alleged harm.
“For more than 50 years, these oil companies have known about the harm that their products would cause to communities, but have chosen to continue business as usual,” Boulder County stated.
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ExxonMobil and Suncor are arguing that local governments cannot use state tort law to hold individual energy companies liable for the worldwide effects of greenhouse gas emissions, and that the lawsuit is really just an attempt to judicially regulate emissions with financial penalties without passing laws.
EarthRights lead counsel Marco Simons essentially confirmed the companies’ theory in 2020, telling KHOL the goal is “cutting back on the harmful activities, and/or to raise the price of the products,” so the cost of the harms “would ultimately get priced into them.”
The Rockefeller Family Fund, which is funding much of the ongoing case, stated, “Recognizing that there is no path to reducing climate change without limiting fossil fuel production, RFF’s climate program funds and develops the best opportunities to slow the production of oil and gas and make climate polluters pay for the damage they have caused.”
RFF described the same mechanism as Simons of EarthRights, stating that they aim to “require polluters to pay their fair share of the climate damages they caused.”
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Referring to the Colorado lawsuit and similar ones in New York City and California, the Denver Post described the efforts as attempts to “bypass the political process and either wrest large settlements out of companies that tire of the legal battering or locate a court sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ dubious legal theories.”
Niskanen Center, another D.C.-based entity serving as co-counsel on the 2018 complaint, has received about $6.07 million in grants, including climate litigation and carbon tax grants.
While available information does not prove that carbon tax money directly funded the Colorado lawsuit, it shows that both of these efforts grew in the same “environmental justice” political ecosystem.
The overlap between EarthRights, RFF, Niskanen Center, and other groups show how dark money groups are using climate lawfare to shut down American energy in the name of “justice,” while Democrats simultaneously use the increased price of gas as a political point.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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