Amended ‘climate change’ litigation against ExxonMobil reveals fundamental weakness of political lawsuit
The Beacon Hill Institute today released a white paper examining the recent amendment of Massachusetts’ ‘climate change’ lawsuit brought against ExxonMobil last year. In June, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s office amended the lawsuit by injecting the COVID-19 coronavirus directly into the legal complaint.
The conflation of the coronavirus and climate crisis, both misleading and far-fetched, bespeaks of the AG’s mindset in which, like inspector Javert in Les Misérables, Healey is prepared use any argument, however ridiculous, that allows for leveraging the justice system in pursuit of political gain.
“Healey’s decision reveals a willingness to make extreme, offensive arguments in support of indefensible legal arguments,” said David G. Tuerck, Executive Director of the Beacon Hill Institute. “For example, the claim that a global pandemic that claimed the lives of more than 135,000 Americans and in excess of 8,100 Massachusetts’ residents as of mid-July is somehow relevant to climate change.”
By any measure, the novel coronavirus has no relevancy to the Commonwealth’s flimsy claims against ExxonMobil. The only conceivable rationale it has been inserted into the lawsuit is the potential to score political points or garner media headlines.
Ironically, Healey’s attempt to correlate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic with those associated with climate change undermines her own case.
“Try as she might, Attorney General Healey cannot escape the central weakness of a climate complaint that relies on an absurd premise,” added Tuerck.
Full Study here.
Full Press Release here.
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“Oil Refinery at Dawn” by Iguanasan is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
