The state of California and several environmental groups sued oil giant Exxon Mobil on Monday, accusing the company of engaging in a decades-long campaign to fuel global plastic waste pollution.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a Climate Week event in New York City that the state sued Exxon because a nearly two-year investigation found that the company knowingly misled the public about the limits of recycling.
“Today’s lawsuit presents the most complete picture yet of ExxonMobil’s decades-long deceptive conduct, and we ask the Court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastic pollution crisis through its deceptive activities,” Bonta said in a statement.
The investigation is similar to one California has previously investigated over alleged efforts by the oil industry to mislead the public about climate change – a lawsuit the state is also currently facing – and continues a longstanding rivalry between the state and big oil companies.
Once a major crude supplier, oil production in California has been declining steadily for nearly four decades, and companies say the region’s regulatory environment makes it a difficult place to invest.
Meanwhile, Exxon’s rival Chevron Corp. has strongly criticized California’s policies and announced plans this year to move its headquarters from its birthplace to oil-industry friendly Texas.
A coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, appears to have joined the California legal fight, filing a related lawsuit in the same state court in San Francisco making similar claims against Exxon.
Bonta, a Democrat, said he specifically wanted information about Exxon’s promotion of “advanced recycling” technology that uses a process called pyrolysis to turn hard-to-recycle plastics into fuel.
He said the slow pace of technological progress was evidence that Exxon was continuing to commit fraud. He said he wanted to secure a mitigation fund and civil penalties for the damage plastic pollution has done to California.
Exxon argued in its response to the attorney general that solutions such as advanced recycling would work.
“Lawsuits attract attention but do not solve the problem of plastic waste. Advanced recycling is the real solution,” an ExxonMobil spokesman said, adding that California has “done nothing to ‘promote’ recycling.”
‘An uphill battle’
Bruce Huber, a professor at Notre Dame Law School who specializes in environmental law, said California could face an “uphill battle” in the lawsuit.
“The state’s primary argument relies on public nuisance allegations, a notoriously grey area of the law. It may be difficult for the court to grant California relief without opening Pandora’s box of other similar claims,” he said.
Exxon is the world’s largest producer of resins used in single-use plastics, according to a report published last year by the Minderoo Foundation in collaboration with consultancy Wood Mackenzie and the Carbon Trust.
Reuters recently reported on major obstacles facing advanced recycling, a strategy the plastics industry touts as an environmental saviour.
California’s lawsuit comes ahead of the final round of international plastics treaty negotiations scheduled to take place in Busan, South Korea, at the end of the year.
Those talks have divided countries over whether the treaty should require caps on plastic production, something Exxon and the global petrochemical industry opposes.
The United States said last month that it supports a treaty aimed at reducing global plastic production.
Environmental groups praised the lawsuit. Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, said the California lawsuit “will hold industry accountable and dispel plastic recycling myths that are preventing real solutions.”
Photo: AP Photo/Richard Drew, File
Topics Lawsuit California Pollution
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