Oil companies suffered a setback in federal court this week as they seek the upper hand in a series of cases seeking to hold them responsible for climate damage.
Local governments from Hoboken to Honolulu have launched nearly two dozen climate liability lawsuits against big oil companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Governments argue that oil companies should be held financially responsible for the consequences of global warming, including damage from floods and wildfires, extreme heat and rising sea levels. The suits would raise hundreds of billions of dollars if successful.
Oil companies want these climate liability cases to be heard in federal courts, where they believe they have an advantage. Local governments say the cases belong in state courts, where there are much stronger consumer protection laws.
On Thursday, the three Trump-appointed judges of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that a Minnesota case belongs in state court. This is the sixth such ruling by courts across the country, writes POLITICO E&E News reporter Lesley Clark.
The decision could also make it more difficult to bring the case before the Supreme Court, a move that oil companies desperately want.
If there had been a major disagreement among the justices about where these cases belonged (state or federal courts), the conservatively learned Supreme Court could be persuaded to step in and make a final decision. But agreement among courts across the country has raised the bar.
“Now the oil companies have to wait for the high court to accept one of their requests to hear the dispute and for them to be able to convince it that all the lower courts have got it wrong,” Lesley told Power Switch.
The decision comes at a time when the industry is booming. Oil and gas companies made record profits last year and production is only expected to grow.
The Biden administration recently approved an $8 billion oil project in Alaska, despite dire warnings from the world’s leading scientists that burning more fossil fuels is incompatible with a habitable planet.
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Today on the POLITICO Energy podcast: Joseph Gedeon breaks down Canada’s plan for a permanent nuclear waste storage facility and why it’s drawing protests from some US lawmakers.
The Biden administration may allow European companies to share billions of dollars in U.S. tax incentives for electric vehicles if the two sides can reach a trade deal in the coming weeks, a senior U.S. official said Friday. administration, a move that could help ease a major source of transatlantic friction, writes Zack Colman.
Those concessions for Europe will not be included in a long-awaited proposed guidance the Treasury Department will release for stimulus next week, the official told POLITICO after speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.
But ongoing talks between the U.S. and the EU could produce a deal that would allow vehicles that include European minerals to qualify for full tax breaks, the person said. These vehicles should still be manufactured in North America.
electric future
The guidance the Treasury Department plans to issue next week could also have lasting implications for US-China collaborations on electric vehicles, as well as the Biden administration’s climate and human rights goals , writes David Iaconangelo.
This is a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that allows buyers of new electric vehicles to claim up to $7,500 in tax credits. In future years, these incentives will not be available for cars with battery parts supplied by a “foreign concerned entity,” a term not defined by the statute.
Deep water mining
A discussion this week among members of an international agency responsible for regulating ocean-bed mining shows how politically explosive the effort could be, even as mining proposals move closer to reality, writes Hannah Northey.
The fight highlights the growing tension surrounding mining in some of the most mysterious, remote and unspoiled places on the planet. Despite the concerns, advocates argue the practice could help the world avoid the worst effects of climate change by securing minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries and low-carbon energy technology.
Car cliffhanger
European Union leaders concluded a summit today without an agreement on phasing out combustion engine vehicles by 2035, a major sticking point between Berlin and Brussels, a POLITICO team of reporters writes.
Berlin, along with several allies, has held hostage previously agreed legislation, demanding that the EU deal with a loophole to allow the sale of some traditional combustion engine vehicles after 2035 as long as they run on synthetic fuels .
Maryland Public Services: A first-in-the-nation bill seeks to shed light on public service deliberations and “shadow government”.
Leave it gooo: Warm winter weather threatens a beloved Canadian tradition: the hair freeze contest.
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