A "major, years-long lawsuit" brought by the California-based Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) against several oil and natural gas companies has been voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs. The suit alleged that the oil and gas companies "waged a disinformation campaign about the impacts of climate change."
The California-based Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), the largest trade association of commercial fishermen on the West Coast, requested the dismissal in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The request came after Judge Vince Chhabria ruled on Nov. 1 that the case could be heard in federal court despite PCFFA's argument for it to be tried in state court.
"Climate change is a global challenge that requires a coordinated international policy response, not a jumble of baseless local lawsuits," said Bill Turenne, a spokesperson for U.S. oil company Chevron, one of several companies named as defendants in the case. "As the Second Circuit Court of Appeals put it when affirming dismissal of a similar case, ‘such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law.’"
It's unclear why the plaintiffs effectively decided to abandon the lawsuit, other than the nonsensical idea that oil companies could somehow conceal any information on "climate change," when the legacy media has been screaming "climate change" to the skies for decades now. The case, as noted above, was due to be moved to a federal court, and it's possible the plaintiffs didn't want to move to the larger setting.
PCFFA's lawsuit dates back to November 2018 and was among the first "climate deception" cases filed nationwide. The lawsuit — which names Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP America, Shell and ConocoPhillips, among several other oil companies as defendants — sought to hold the industry accountable for its alleged "decades-long campaigns of deception about the science of climate change and the role their products play in causing it."
Question: What deception? Forget the legacy media: the oil companies themselves are on record, proclaiming far and wide the actions they are taking to reduce carbon emissions. Take a look at this commercial from ExxonMobil (named in the suit) and Mitsubishi, and ask yourself how Exxon is being "deceptive" about climate change:
Or how about this one, touting the company's exploring hydrogen technology?
Or how about this commercial, from Shell, also named in the lawsuit, describing their "journey to net zero?"
Oh, look, Chevron -- also named in the lawsuit -- is in on the action, too!
It's got to be hard to establish any pattern of "deception" when the major energy companies are running ads like these; no matter what you think of the "climate change" panic, it's absurd to claim the energy companies are engaging in any "deception," when they are talking about it, openly, and not only claiming to be concerned about climate change but showing, on screen, how they are engaging in some pretty expensive technologies to reduce carbon emissions. This may be largely a PR campaign -- but the money is being spent, the equipment is there, adding to the cost of every erg of energy we use, and that kind of negates the entire argument in this and other, similar lawsuits.
Bill Turenne, a spokesman for Chevron, one of the other companies named in the suit, expressed his concern over the issue in a statement addressing the case:
Climate change is a global challenge that requires a coordinated international policy response, not a jumble of baseless local lawsuits. As the Second Circuit Court of Appeals put it when affirming dismissal of a similar case, ‘such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law.’
It's becoming apparent why the lawsuit was dropped; there's just no case to be made that the energy companies are "deceiving" people, except, perhaps, in the idea that all of these efforts will have any meaningful impact on the climate one way or the other. But there's something about this issue that makes some people come a little bit unglued, and some of those people clearly have law firms on retainer.
This case was lawfare, pure and simple; it was nothing more than harassment against the companies that provide the abundant energy and raw materials on which our technological society depends. Attacks on the private sector, it seems, are PC; we can't have people pointing out, for instance, the manifest failures of the government on any matters regarding energy. It will be interesting to see if any of the other, similar suits ever result in any decisions against the energy companies; if the abandonment of this case does anything, it should serve as an example.
There's a bright spot: At least no one has filed a lawsuit to curb human respiration. Yet.
