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August 1, 2024

Legal battle over fossil fuels and climate heats up

By Dana Drugmand

As climate change fuels increasingly damaging extreme weather events across the United States, litigation is growing against fossil fuel companies accused of being to blame for the devastation. But a series of recent legal moves by the industry and mixed judicial decisions underscore the challenges that local and state government plaintiffs face in the multi-billion-dollar battle.

Just last month, the industry scored a significant win when a Maryland circuit court judge tossed out a six-year-old climate liability case against more than two dozen of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies. The case, filed in 2018 by Baltimore officials, accused the companies of hiding the climate-harming impacts of their products, causing rising sea levels, severe storms, flooding, heatwaves and other “dire effects on the world.”

The fossil fuel companies successfully argued, however, that because the legal claims center on global greenhouse gas emissions, they stretch beyond the bounds of state laws. Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and federal law – particularly the Clean Air Act – preempts state law claims pertaining to those emissions, according to the industry.

“Regulation of interstate and international greenhouse gas emissions is beyond the role of state law,” Phil Goldberg, special counsel for an industry initiative working to combat climate litigation, said in a statement.

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May 29, 2024

Postcard from California: Are corporate “climate offsets” just greenwashing?

By Bill Walker

Apple touts the newest model of the Apple Watch as its first “carbon neutral” product – made with “100% clean energy” and “recycled and renewable materials” and shipped by “lower-carbon modes” instead of by air. But a close look at the watch’s environmental specs shows that reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in its manufacturing and supply chain only goes so far.

More than one-fifth of the claimed savings in emissions are attributed to Apple’s purchase of so-called climate offsets, including shares in a project to plant eucalyptus timber plantations in eastern Paraguay, far from its Silicon Valley headquarters or its factories in China.

The project’s backers say the climate offsets it is buying reflect a reduction in eastern Paraguay’s emissions from cattle ranching, a leading source of planet-heating methane. But human rights groups say the scheme is driving peasant farmers from their land for little actual climate gain as most of the newly planted trees will be harvested quickly for consumer products.

Apple is but one of many corporate giants that has pledged to cut its company-wide emissions to “net zero” by 2030, joined by Google, Disney, Netflix and many more brands.

Even ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron – the multinational oil companies that are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the last decade – say they will be net zero by 2050.

According to the nonprofit Net Zero Tracker, more than 1,000 of the world’s largest companies have publicly declared goals of net zero by midcentury or before.

To get there, most plan to claim their purchases of climate offsets, also known as carbon credits, as emissions reductions. Through exchanges called verifiers or certifiers, companies buy, sell and trade shares in schemes that promise to reduce emissions, supposedly offsetting the climate pollution the companies can’t, or won’t, eliminate from their own operations.

January 17, 2024

Postcard from California: Idle oil wells threaten health, climate and will cost billions to plug

By Bill Walker

Last June, at commencement ceremonies in the small, heavily Latino town of Arvin, Calif., proud graduates threw their caps in the air. But those gathered at the Arvin High School football field didn’t know there was something else in the air: potentially explosive levels of noxious methane gas leaking from an idle oil well only 400 feet away.

A week before, state inspectors had found that 27 idle wells around Arvin were leaking methane, the main constituent of so-called “natural” gas. More than half – including the well near the football field, which hadn’t produced oil since 1979 – were spewing concentrations of the combustible, colorless, odorless gas. But the community wasn’t told about the leaks until a meeting almost two weeks after graduation.

State regulators’ “woeful lack of enforcement led to the inevitable leaks in our neighborhoods that our communities have warned about for years,” Cesar Aguirre, an organizer with the Central California Environmental Justice Network, said in a press release. He said officials “callously told residents . . . not to worry, leaving them feeling defenseless and willfully put in harm’s way.”

Arvin is in Kern County, the center of California’s oil industry. But idled and leaking oil and gas wells are a statewide crisis whose scope – and the looming cost of closing them – is mind-boggling:

California has more than 35,000 idle wells – wells not in use for at least two years, but not properly plugged and closed – according to the state Geologic Energy Management Division, known as CalGEM. Scientists from Stanford University and the University of California estimate that two-thirds of idle wells are leaking.
A study for CalGEM by the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) estimated that more than 5,500 wells are not only idle but may be “orphaned”: Their operators have gone bankrupt and walked away, leaving no one responsible for maintaining or plugging them. The group warned an additional 69,425 wells were in danger of becoming orphaned in the future.
A report last year by the nonprofit Carbon Tracker Initiative estimated the cost to plug and clean up California’s current and future idle and orphan wells at $13.2 billion to $21.5 billion.

January 8, 2024

Monsanto’s ‘cancer index’, an alleged conspiracy, and new PCB-related complaints

By Dana Drugmand

The former Monsanto company – now owned by Bayer AG – illegally cut a secret deal with General Electric Co. decades ago to try to shield itself from liability related to PCB contamination in western Massachusetts, engaging in a conspiracy that continues to wreak harm on the region, according to new complaints from local officials.

In a January 2 letter sent to several local, state, and federal officials, including President Joe Biden and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan, officials from the town of Lee, Mass., said they believe a 1971 business deal between Monsanto and GE in which GE agreed to release Monsanto from liability for PCB contamination violated the Massachusetts Civil Conspiracy Law. The town plans to file charges against Monsanto this month, the letter states. Lee officials also accuse the EPA of failing to “adequately investigate” the arrangement between the two companies.

Attached to the letter are internal corporate documents, including a “cancer index” detailing a long list of Monsanto employees diagnosed with cancer dating back to 1949. The company spreadsheet notes where the employee worked, what type of cancer they suffered and – for many of the workers– dates of death. Monsanto was the sole manufacturer of PCBs in the United States from the 1930s through the 1970s.

The move in Massachusetts comes amid mounting community outrage over the construction of a new toxic waste dump in Lee in Berkshire County near a location where GE used polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBS) for decades in manufacturing electrical transformers. GE discharged the chemical waste into the nearby Housatonic River.

PCBs have long been linked to an array of human health concerns, including leukemia and other cancers. In one study of nearly 400 children, researchers found that detection of PCBs in the home was associated with a 2-fold increase in risk for acute lymphocytic leukemia. PCBs are also known to be harmful to fish and wildlife. They do not easily break down, making eradication difficult.

November 30, 2023

US push to turn farm manure into renewable energy draws concerns

By Keith Schneider

AMES, IOWA – In a gathering that drew the attendance of both farmers and Wall Street financiers, US regulators joined with oil giant Chevron at a November conference here to promote what backers promise will be a monumental breakthrough – systemic changes that would turn polluting agricultural waste into a source of renewable energy that replaces fossil fuels and slows climate change.

Speakers at the conference, which was hosted by Iowa State University and co-sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Agriculture, assured attendees that the answers to agricultural and climate woes can be found in technology that already exists: Key, according to conference promoters, is the rapid expansion of large methane biodigesters, which capture manure waste from the nation’s cattle, hog and poultry operations and convert it into a harvest of both public and private riches.

Water and air would be cleaner and farmers could see billions of dollars in new farm income, among other benefits, according to backers.

“It can provide a substantial portion of global energy needs,” Rudi Roeslein , CEO of Roeslein Alternative Energy, told the attendees. His company has built farm-based methane systems around the country that produce enough fuel to displace six million gallons of diesel fuel and 80,000 cars. “If we do this on a large scale in the US we could generate $63.6 billion worth of revenue for farmers around the country.”

Roeslein’s company promises on its website to “restore a balance” to farmland “by using the sustainably harvested biomass to create renewable natural gas.”

Chevron promotes its investment in manure biodigestion as “finding inspiration in nature.”

“I’m really excited about the innovation in this space,” Lisa Schulte Moore, a professor and co-director of the Bioeconomy Institute at Iowa State, said in an interview. “The renewable natural gas market is providing economic incentives for better management of manure.”

But critics argue that the emergence of an alliance of Big Ag, Big Oil, and Big Government to generate energy from livestock waste is ripe with peril. They say that air pollutants and waste discharged from farms and from already existing farm-based biodigesters receive scant federal and state oversight. They fear that without strict regulation, manure digesters could make water and air pollution worse, not better. Industrial-sized farms, including concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), already are one of the nation’s largest sources of water pollution, and among the principal causes of air pollution.

September 20, 2023

Postcard from California: State takes on Big Oil for decades of climate lies

By Bill Walker

California fired its opening salvo against the oil and gas industry two years ago, with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars and trucks after 2035. In April, the offensive escalated, as the California Air Resources Board (CARB) ordered a phaseout of diesel trucks and locomotives starting in 2036. The state opened another front in June, establishing a watchdog agency to investigate gasoline-pump price spikes and recommend fines for oil companies deemed guilty of gouging customers.

Now the state has dropped its biggest bombshell yet: a monumental lawsuit against five of the world’s largest petrochemical companies for their “decades-long campaign of deception” about the harm of their products to the planet’s climate, and the disastrous and costly impacts of the climate crisis on California.

The 135-page lawsuit, filed last week in San Francisco County Superior Court, alleges that Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP (formerly British Petroleum) knew since the 1950s that burning fossil fuels would heat up the climate with devastating consequences, but covered up the truth instead of alerting the public. The suit also names as a defendant the American Petroleum Institute (API), the industry’s trade association. The defendants are accused of fraud, negligence, product liability, false advertising and creating a public nuisance.

“Oil and gas companies have privately known the truth for decades — that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change — but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment,” state Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a news release. “From extreme heat to drought and water shortages, the climate crisis they have caused is undeniable. It is time they pay to abate the harm they have caused.”

February 23, 2023

Postcard from California: Governor targets oil companies over high gas prices

By Bill Walker

Last June, a Chevron station in downtown Los Angeles charged $8.05 for a gallon of regular gas. At another Chevron station In the coastal village of Mendocino, the price that month hit $9.60.

In a summer when US gas prices spiked to their highest level ever, those were extreme outliers, and they soon came down. But as they have for years, Californians continue to pay higher gas prices than in any other state except Hawaii.

This week, the statewide average was $4.75 a gallon, compared to the nationwide average of $3.39. At one point in October, even as global oil prices dropped, California’s average gas price surged to $2.60 more than the nation’s.

Some of the difference stems from the fact that state gas taxes are the highest in the US, and some from state rules for California’s special blend cleaner-burning fuel, which is more expensive to refine. But that leaves what University of California, Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein calls a “mystery gasoline surcharge” that can’t be fully explained by taxes and environmental regulations. He estimates that since 2015 the surcharge has cost California drivers $40 billion.

On Wednesday, lawmakers in Sacramento took up a proposal from Gov. Gavin Newsom that would make California the first state to fine oil companies for what he terms gas price gouging, and to return their excess profits to consumers.

In a video release promoting his plan, the Democratic governor declared: “Big Oil is ripping you off AND lying to you!”

“Big Oil’s been out there pushing the same old lies and myths to protect their record profits,” Newsom said. “Big Oil won’t say why they suddenly started charging Californians more than people in other states, but we know that resulted in record profits.”

October 20, 2022

Secret “Paraquat Papers” reveal corporate tactics to protect weed killer linked to Parkinson’s disease

By Carey Gillam and Aliya Uteuova

For more than 50 years, Swiss chemical giant Syngenta has manufactured and marketed a widely used weed killing chemical called paraquat, and for much of that time the company has been dealing with external concerns that long-term exposure to the chemical may cause the dreaded, incurable brain ailment known as Parkinson’s disease.

Syngenta has repeatedly told customers and regulators that scientific research does not prove a connection between its weed killer and the disease, insisting that the chemical does not readily cross the blood-brain barrier, and does not affect brain cells in ways that cause Parkinson’s.

But a cache of internal corporate documents dating back to the 1950s obtained by The New Lede in a reporting collaboration with the Guardian suggests that the public narrative put forward by Syngenta and the corporate entities that preceded it has at times contradicted the company’s own research and knowledge.

And though the documents reviewed do not show that Syngenta’s scientists and executives accepted and believed that paraquat can cause Parkinson’s, they do show a corporate focus on strategies to protect product sales, refute external scientific research and influence regulators.

In one defensive tactic, the documents lay out how the company worked behind the scenes to try to keep a highly regarded scientist from sitting on an advisory panel for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency is the chief US regulator for paraquat and other pesticides. Company officials wanted to make sure the efforts could not be traced back to Syngenta, the documents show.

And the documents show that insiders feared they could face legal liability for long-term, chronic effects of paraquat as long ago as 1975. One company scientist called the situation “a quite terrible problem,” for which “some plan could be made….”