PORTLAND, Ore. (Legal Newsline) - Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said that the outcome of a lawsuit brought by her office in 2018 against Monsanto for alleged PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) contamination will determine next legal steps in holding the energy industry accountable for environmental damages allegedly related to its role in climate change.
Climate change “is the existential crisis of our time,” Rosenblum, a Democrat, said during a panel discussion, “Accountability for Climate Change Harms in the Pacific Northwest: Scientific, Policy and Legal Perspectives,” hosted on Friday by Lewis & Clark Law School.
Any legal action against the energy industry will almost certainly resemble some 25 public nuisance lawsuits brought by more than 20 local and state governments from around the country that likewise pin the blame for environmental damages on the oil and gas industry.
A press release announcing the panel discussion referred to the lawsuits against “the world’s largest investor-owned fossil fuel companies” that stem from “deceiving consumers, policymakers, the media and the public at large about the dangerous climate impact their products would cause.”
The lawsuits have been filed in state courts in the wake of a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court 8-0 decision in American Electric Power Co (AEP). v. Connecticut holding that corporations cannot be sued under federal public nuisance laws since responsibility for regulating air emissions lies with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Presently before SCOTUS is a Baltimore climate change case that could decide the jurisdictional fate, and the ultimate outcome, of this latest round of suits against the energy industry.
“Climate change is inherently a federal issue, and there should be a shared effort with all branches of the federal government working with business to find a solution,” Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project (MAP) said for an earlier story on the case.
One of Friday’s panelists, Daniel Mensher, an attorney with the plaintiffs’ firm of Keller Rohrback LLP, which is representing Oregon in the Monsanto case, said that the industry prefers the federal courts as they provide more time in delaying accountability for “causing the end of the world.”
Two years ago, Rosenblum was criticized for hiring climate activist Steve Novick as Special Assistant Attorney General, Natural Resources Section.
Novick’s salary is being paid by a Michael Bloomberg-backed program at the New York University School of Law.
In September 2018, Oregon’s Office of Legislative Counsel issued a legal analysis agreeing with the conclusion laid out in “Law Enforcement for Rent: How Special Interests Fund Climate Policy through State Attorneys General“, stating that ORS §180.140(4) applies to Oregon’s ongoing coordination with Michael Bloomberg’s climate litigation campaign, and does *not* authorize the Oregon OAG arrangement for a privately funded climate prosecutor to pursue issues of interest to the donor.
Goldberg said that that the practice “raises serious ethical concerns.”