Big Oil Conspired to Deceive the Public, Claims Climate Racketeering Lawsuit

Lawyer for Puerto Rican towns describes why they are deploying laws used to target mob bosses.

View of a refinery.Getty Images

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The same racketeering legislation used to bring down mob bosses, motorcycle gangs, football executives and international fraudsters is to be tested against oil and coal companies who are accused of conspiring to deceive the public over the climate crisis.

In an ambitious move, an attempt will be made to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for “decades of deception” in a lawsuit being brought by communities in Puerto Rico that were devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

“Puerto Rico is one of the most affected places by climate change in the world. It is so precariously positioned—they get hit on all fronts with hurricanes, storm surge, heat, coral bleaching—it’s the perfect place for this climate litigation,” said Melissa Sims, senior counsel for the plaintiffs’ law firm Milberg.

The 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act was originally intended to combat criminal enterprises like the mafia, but has since been used in civil courts to litigate harms caused by opioids, vehicle emissions and even e-cigarettes as organized crime cases.

Now, the first-ever climate change RICO case alleges that international oil and coal companies, their trade associations, and a network of paid think tanks, scientists and other operatives conspired to deceive the public—specifically residents of Puerto Rico—about the direct link between their greenhouse gas-emitting products and climate change.

This fossil fuel enterprise, which remains operational according to the lawsuit, resulted in multitude of damages caused by climate disasters that were foreseen—but hidden—by the defendants in order to maximize profits.

The plaintiffs are 16 municipalities in Puerto Rico—towns and cities that were hit hard by two powerful hurricanes in September 2017, Irma and Maria—which led to thousands of deaths, food shortages, widespread infrastructure damage and the longest blackout in US history.

Sims, the senior counsel, said: “What’s different about this [RICO] case is that we have their enterprise in writing—the decision by rival companies, their front groups, scientists and associations to act together to change public opinion regarding the use of their consumer products by telling people something that they knew was not true.”

According to the lawsuit—filed in the US federal district court of Puerto Rico—evidence of the conspiracy dates back to 1989 when the defendants, which include ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Rio Tinto, individually and through trade association formed the Global Climate Coalition as a “not-for-profit corporation to influence, advertise, and promote the interests of the fossil fuel industry by giving false information to their consumers and the public at large.”

It argues that so-called rival companies conspired for a common purpose—to deceive consumers and sow confusion in order to keep fossil fuel sales high and profitable—and that the GCC was a propaganda machine specifically set up to oppose the Kyoto protocol, the first major international effort to combat climate change. To do this, a written action plan was devised in 1998 to mislead consumers by convincing them that “global warming” was not occurring, and if it did happen, there was no scientific consensus on whether fossil fuels were to blame.

In other words, the action plan was allegedly a climate change denial plan executed through a network of dark money ploughed into think tanks, research institutions, trade groups and PR firms, and provided a roadmap for an open-ended enterprise that is still implemented today.

The lawsuit argues that the oil and coal companies knew that Puerto Rico was a “sitting duck” because of its geographic location, which made the island and its people particularly vulnerable to climate change events—namely hotter and wetter storms, extreme heat and rising sea level—caused by their carbon products.

Over the past two decades, Puerto Rico—along with Haiti and Myanmar—has been among three territories most affected by extreme weather such as storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts, according to the Germanwatch Climate Risk Index, which are becoming more intense due to human-made global heating driven by greenhouse gases. In September, Hurricane Ian left much of the island without power and water, as well as damaging essential infrastructure like roads and bridges.

The damages resulting from the 2017 storms—and the likelihood of worse climate disasters battering the island in the future—come down to the acts and omissions of the defendants, as the oil and coal companies, along with their worldwide co-venturers, are collectively responsible for at least 40 percent of greenhouse gases, the lawsuit argues.

It’s the latest in a wave of civil class actions brought by municipalities—towns and cities—against corporations and organizations accused of causing harm to residents. According to Sims, who has also represented Puerto Rico municipalities in opioid litigation which resulted in compensation for damages, cites have an almost unfettered ability to use their nuisance laws and local ordinances.

Sims, a Republican and Christian, said: “Cities across the nation have woken up to this power and are starting to exercise their rights almost like mini attorney generals. They are now often the first ones bringing cases on opioids, Juul electronic cigarettes, pollution, reverse red-lining and now climate change, using their rights pursuant to racketeering and other laws we’ve helped fine-tune over the years.”

Seven oil firms, three coal companies, and hundreds of organizations and operatives are among the defendants accused of consumer fraud, racketeering, antitrust, fraudulent misrepresentation, conspiracy to defraud, products liability and unjust enrichment among other crimes.

The American Petroleum Institute and the National Mining Association ​did not respond to requests for comment. ​Several of the defendants have made statements criticizing the lawsuit.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate