The Energy Mix

Top Menu

  • About
  • Latest Digest/Archive
  • Partners
  • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Contact

Main Menu

  • News Archive by Category
    • Climate & Society
      • Carbon Levels & Measurement
      • Carbon-Free Transition
      • Climate Action/”Blockadia”
      • Climate Denial & Greenwashing
      • Climate Policy/Meetings/Negotiations
      • Culture, Curiosities, & Humour
      • Demographics
      • Energy Politics
      • Energy Subsidies
      • Energy/Carbon Pricing & Economics
      • Finance & Investment
      • First Peoples
      • Insurance & Liability
      • International Agencies & Studies
      • Jobs & Training
      • Legal & Regulatory
      • Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion
      • Methane
      • Travel, Leisure & Recreation
    • Climate Impacts & Adaptation
      • Biodiversity & Habitat
      • Drought, Famine & Wildfires
      • Food Security
      • Forests & Deforestation
      • Health & Safety
      • Heat & Temperature
      • Human Rights & Migration
      • Ice Loss & Sea Level Rise
      • International Security & War
      • Severe Storms & Flooding
      • Soil & Natural Sequestration
      • Water
    • Demand & Distribution
      • Air & Marine
      • Auto & Alternative Vehicles
      • Batteries/Storage
      • Buildings
      • Cities
      • Electricity Grid
      • Energy Access & Equity
      • Off-Grid
      • Petrochemicals & Plastics
      • Supply Chains & Consumption
      • Transit
      • Walking & Biking
    • Jurisdictions
      • Africa
      • Arctic & Antarctica
      • Asia
      • Australia
      • Brazil
      • Canada
      • China
      • Europe
      • India
      • International
      • Mexico, Caribbean & Latin America
      • Middle East
      • Oceans
      • Small Island States
      • South & Central America
      • Sub-National Governments
      • United States
    • Non-Renewable Energy
      • CCS & Negative Emissions
      • Coal
      • Nuclear
      • Oil & Gas
      • Pipelines/Rail Transport
      • Shale & Fracking
      • Tar Sands/Oil Sands
    • Opinion & Analysis
    • Renewable Energy
      • Bioenergy
      • Demand & Efficiency
      • General Renewables
      • Geothermal
      • Hydrogen
      • Hydropower
      • Research & Development
      • Solar
      • Wave & Tidal
      • Wind
  • Special Reports
    • Alberta’s Bitumen Pipe Dream
    • Canada’s Drive to Net Zero
    • Carbon Farming
    • City and Sub-National Action
    • Drawdown
    • Drive to 1.5
    • 26-Week Climate Transition Program for Canada
    • America’s Electoral Climate 2020
    • Canada’s Climate Change Election 2019
    • The Energy Mix Yearbook 2018
      • Climate Extremes
      • Fossils Go For Broke
      • Renewables (R)Evolution
      • Electric Vehicles
      • Canada’s Contradiction
      • COP24
      • Pipeline Politics
      • Jobs and Just Transition
      • Cities and Sub-Nationals
      • Finance and Divestment
      • Climate Litigation
  • Webinars & Podcasts
  • About
  • Latest Digest/Archive
  • Partners
  • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Donate

logo

  • News Archive by Category
    • Climate & Society
      • Carbon Levels & Measurement
      • Carbon-Free Transition
      • Climate Action/”Blockadia”
      • Climate Denial & Greenwashing
      • Climate Policy/Meetings/Negotiations
      • Culture, Curiosities, & Humour
      • Demographics
      • Energy Politics
      • Energy Subsidies
      • Energy/Carbon Pricing & Economics
      • Finance & Investment
      • First Peoples
      • Insurance & Liability
      • International Agencies & Studies
      • Jobs & Training
      • Legal & Regulatory
      • Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion
      • Methane
      • Travel, Leisure & Recreation
    • Climate Impacts & Adaptation
      • Biodiversity & Habitat
      • Drought, Famine & Wildfires
      • Food Security
      • Forests & Deforestation
      • Health & Safety
      • Heat & Temperature
      • Human Rights & Migration
      • Ice Loss & Sea Level Rise
      • International Security & War
      • Severe Storms & Flooding
      • Soil & Natural Sequestration
      • Water
    • Demand & Distribution
      • Air & Marine
      • Auto & Alternative Vehicles
      • Batteries/Storage
      • Buildings
      • Cities
      • Electricity Grid
      • Energy Access & Equity
      • Off-Grid
      • Petrochemicals & Plastics
      • Supply Chains & Consumption
      • Transit
      • Walking & Biking
    • Jurisdictions
      • Africa
      • Arctic & Antarctica
      • Asia
      • Australia
      • Brazil
      • Canada
      • China
      • Europe
      • India
      • International
      • Mexico, Caribbean & Latin America
      • Middle East
      • Oceans
      • Small Island States
      • South & Central America
      • Sub-National Governments
      • United States
    • Non-Renewable Energy
      • CCS & Negative Emissions
      • Coal
      • Nuclear
      • Oil & Gas
      • Pipelines/Rail Transport
      • Shale & Fracking
      • Tar Sands/Oil Sands
    • Opinion & Analysis
    • Renewable Energy
      • Bioenergy
      • Demand & Efficiency
      • General Renewables
      • Geothermal
      • Hydrogen
      • Hydropower
      • Research & Development
      • Solar
      • Wave & Tidal
      • Wind
  • Special Reports
    • Alberta’s Bitumen Pipe Dream
    • Canada’s Drive to Net Zero
    • Carbon Farming
    • City and Sub-National Action
    • Drawdown
    • Drive to 1.5
    • 26-Week Climate Transition Program for Canada
    • America’s Electoral Climate 2020
    • Canada’s Climate Change Election 2019
    • The Energy Mix Yearbook 2018
      • Climate Extremes
      • Fossils Go For Broke
      • Renewables (R)Evolution
      • Electric Vehicles
      • Canada’s Contradiction
      • COP24
      • Pipeline Politics
      • Jobs and Just Transition
      • Cities and Sub-Nationals
      • Finance and Divestment
      • Climate Litigation
  • Webinars & Podcasts
Advanced Search
Biodiversity & HabitatCitiesClimate Impacts & AdaptationDrought, Famine & WildfiresHealth & SafetyIce Loss & Sea Level RiseLegal & RegulatoryOil & GasUnited States
Home›Climate Impacts & Adaptation›Biodiversity & Habitat›Courts Rule Against Fossils in California Climate Disclosure Case, Reject Montana Oil and Gas Leases Over Sage Grouse Protection

Courts Rule Against Fossils in California Climate Disclosure Case, Reject Montana Oil and Gas Leases Over Sage Grouse Protection

May 28, 2020
May 28, 2020
 
37
0
Share:
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  Print This Story
Bureau of Land Management California/Flickr

Five of the world’s most colossal fossils will have to face a pair of lawsuits from California cities and counties in state court, rather than trying for more favourable rulings from federal judges, after an appeals court ruled this week that the state level is the proper venue for the courts.

The pair of rulings from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came on the same day that a federal court judge in Montana threw out 440 oil and gas leases across the western United States, declaring that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had failed to follow a sage grouse habitat protection plan when it issued the permits.

Like this story? Subscribe to The Energy Mix and never miss an edition of our free e-digest.

SUBSCRIBE

In California, one of the rulings denied the fossils’ request to have a case filed by three cities and five counties heard at the federal level, InsideClimate News explains. The other revived a separate case brought by San Francisco and Oakland and sent it back to federal district court for a decision on whether it should properly be heard by a state judge.

“Although mostly procedural, the rulings are nevertheless significant in giving the municipalities the upper hand in the next round of the legal skirmish,” InsideClimate writes, citing legal scholars. “Most significantly, they rejected the industry argument that the liability claims made under California laws are pre-empted by the federal Clean Air Act, a legal tactic that successfully derailed similar climate cases over the last decade.”

“Today’s Ninth Circuit decisions represent a very big win for the California local governments bringing these climate change-related lawsuits and, correspondingly, a major loss for the carbon-based energy industry,” Richard Frank, director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center, told ICN. “The carbon-based energy defendants should be worried about today’s decisions, and what they portend for the future resolution of these cases.”

While it could still take years for the cases to be resolved, cities and climate hawks declared a major victory. “The lawsuits claim Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and other companies created a public nuisance and should pay for damage from climate change and help build sea walls and other infrastructure to protect against future impact—construction that could cost tens of billions of dollars,” The Associated Press reports. They also allege the fossils “promoted petroleum as environmentally responsible when they knew it was contributing to drought, wildfires, and sea level rise associated with global warming.”

District Court judge William Alsup previously rejected the lawsuits brought by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland in 2018, after famously conducting a public master class to have both sides brief him on climate science. “The problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case,” Alsup wrote, in a verdict that accepted the science but left other cities with similar cases “reeling”, according to news reports at the time.

It was a dramatically different story this week. “It is time for these companies to pay their fair share,” said San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. “They should not be able to stick taxpayers with the bill for the damage they knew they were causing. We will continue to hold these companies accountable for their decades-long campaign of public deception about climate change and its consequences.”

AP says the rulings “are expected to meet continued challenges that could include a review by a larger 9th Circuit panel and, eventually, review by the U.S. Supreme Court.” But UCLA environmental law professor Ann Carlson, who provided free legal advice to the cities, said the rulings bring the cases closer to a discovery process that could lead to the release of some powerfully incriminating material.

“This means they can depose top executives about what they knew and when they knew it and what oil companies did to fund a campaign to dissuade the American public that climate change was happening,” she told AP. “The oil companies’ strategy is to keep the light from shining on their own behaviour. This gets closer to allowing plaintiffs to shine that light.”

In Montana, meanwhile District Court judge Brian Morris ruled that Donald Trump’s BLM “undercut” a conservation plan it had enacted in 2015 for the threatened sage grouse. “The decision strikes down a 2018 memo that sought to change that plan, meaning the government will have to return millions of dollars for oil and gas contracts spread over some 336,000 acres,” The Hill reports.

“The errors here occurred at the beginning of the oil and gas lease sale process, infecting everything that followed,” Morris wrote in his decision.

“The court’s decision is not only good news for the sage grouse, it reaffirms the historic plan that BLM worked out with farmers, ranchers, conservationists, energy groups, and government officials,” said Earthjustice attorney Michael Freeman, who represented conservation groups in court. “It confirms that the Trump administration violated the law in bulldozing those commitments in its haste to sell off lands that are owned by all Americans to the oil and gas industry.”

TagsUS Election 2020 - Community Pushes Back
Share:
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  Print This Story

Find more stories about
Biodiversity & HabitatCitiesClimate Impacts & AdaptationDrought, Famine & WildfiresHealth & SafetyIce Loss & Sea Level RiseLegal & RegulatoryOil & GasUnited States

    Leave a reply Cancel reply

    Recent Posts

    • ‘Red Alert for Planet’ as UN Report Projects Only 0.5% Emissions Cut by 2030
      ‘Red Alert for Planet’ as UN Report Projects Only 0.5% Emissions Cut by 2030
      March 1, 2021
    • Lookback: Anjali Appadurai Speaks for ‘Silent Majority’ at COP 17
      Lookback: Anjali Appadurai Speaks for ‘Silent Majority’ at COP 17
      March 1, 2021
    • B.C. Pushes Forward with Site C Hydro Megaproject Despite $16-Billion Price Tag
      B.C. Pushes Forward with Site C Hydro Megaproject Despite $16-Billion Price Tag
      March 1, 2021
    • RBC Adds $500 Billion to Sustainable Funds, Faces Mounting Pressure for Fossil Investments
      RBC Adds $500 Billion to Sustainable Funds, Faces Mounting Pressure for Fossil Investments
      March 1, 2021
    • ‘Future Belongs to Renewables’ as Norwegian Wealth Fund Blacklists Four Alberta Fossils
      ‘Future Belongs to Renewables’ as Norwegian Wealth Fund Blacklists Four Alberta Fossils
      March 1, 2021

    News Feed

    Top News

    • Alberta Budget Makes ‘No Provision’ for Keystone Cancellation
      February 28, 2021
    • GM Unveils Retooled, Less Expensive Chevy Bolt
      February 28, 2021

    Read More

    Carbon-Free Transition

    • GM Unveils Retooled, Less Expensive Chevy Bolt
      February 28, 2021
    • Battery Technology Funding ‘Exploded’ in 2020
      February 28, 2021

    Read More

    Canada

    • Alberta Budget Makes ‘No Provision’ for Keystone Cancellation
      February 28, 2021
    • Sask First Nations Rally Behind Community in Fight Against Uranium Firm
      February 28, 2021

    Read More

    U.S.

    • Empire State Building to Run on 100% Renewables
      February 28, 2021
    • Minnesota Governor Sets 2040 Carbon-Free Power Target
      February 28, 2021

    Read More

    International

    • Climate Figures Prominently in German State Elections This Month
      February 28, 2021
    • Spanish Broadband Firms Tap In to Solar
      February 28, 2021

    Read More

    • About the Energy Mix
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy and Copyright
    Copyright 2020 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.