{"id":53925,"date":"2020-06-28T19:47:23","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T00:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=53925"},"modified":"2020-06-28T19:48:04","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T00:48:04","slug":"dc-is-the-latest-to-sue-exxon-and-big-oil-for-climate-disinformation-campaigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=53925","title":{"rendered":"DC Is the Latest to Sue Exxon and Big Oil for Climate Disinformation Campaigns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2020\/06\/25\/district-columbia-fraud-lawsuit-exxon-oil-climate-disinformation\">DC Is the Latest to Sue Exxon and Big Oil for Climate Disinformation Campaigns<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/15582625663_e099a3625d_c.jpg?itok=ErhwhjS8\" alt=\"DC Attorney General Karl Racine\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Washington,&nbsp;D.C.&nbsp;is suing the four largest investor-owned oil and gas companies \u2014&nbsp;BP, Chevron,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/exxonmobil-funding-climate-science-denial\">ExxonMobil<\/a>, and Shell \u2014 for allegedly misleading consumers about climate change, including historically undermining&nbsp;climate science and even now using&nbsp;deceptive advertising about the companies\u2019 role in leading solutions to the climate&nbsp;crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>District of Columbia Attorney General Karl A. Racine&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/oag.dc.gov\/release\/prepared-remarks-exxon-mobilbpchevronshell-lawsuit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a>&nbsp;the consumer fraud lawsuit on Thursday, June 25. The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/oag.dc.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2020-06\/DC-v-Exxon-BP-Chevron-Shell-Filed-Complaint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lawsuit<\/a>&nbsp;claims that the four oil majors violated the District\u2019s Consumer Protection Procedures Act by engaging in misleading acts and practices around the marketing, promotion, and sale of fossil fuel products, which produce globe-warming pollution. The&nbsp;D.C.&nbsp;lawsuit alleges that these companies knew since at least the 1950s about the harmful consequences of burning fossil fuels and that they engaged in a campaign to deceive the public about those&nbsp;risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe allowfullscreen=\"true\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/index.html?dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-1&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1276169356326600705&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.desmogblog.com%2F2020%2F06%2F25%2Fdistrict-columbia-fraud-lawsuit-exxon-oil-climate-disinformation&amp;siteScreenName=desmogblog&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=b930ccc%3A1593122803960&amp;width=550px\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFor decades, these oil and gas companies spent millions to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of profits,\u201d&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/oag.dc.gov\/release\/ag-racine-sues-exxon-mobil-bp-chevron-and-shell\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a>&nbsp;Attorney General&nbsp;Racine. \u201cThe defendants violated the District\u2019s consumer protection law by concealing the fact that using fossil fuels threatens the health of District residents and the environment. [The Office of Attorney General]&nbsp;filed this suit to end these disinformation campaigns and to hold these companies accountable for their deceptive&nbsp;practices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In particular, the\u00a0D.C.\u00a0Attorney General&#8217;s Office called out the oil industry&#8217;s use of fake grassroots groups, such as the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/advancement-sound-science-coalition\">Advancement of Sound Science Coalition<\/a>, which started out as a front group for tobacco giant Philip Morris in 1993. This group had transitioned to become the\u00a0Advancement of Sound Science Center in 1997 and was run out of the home of climate science denier\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/steve-milloy\">Steve Milloy<\/a>, who most recently worked in public relations for coal company Murray Energy.\u00a0 The group\u00a0has now been phased out of\u00a0existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DC Is the Latest to Sue Exxon and Big Oil for Climate Disinformation Campaigns Washington,&nbsp;D.C.&nbsp;is suing the four largest investor-owned oil and gas companies \u2014&nbsp;BP, Chevron,&nbsp;ExxonMobil, and Shell \u2014 for allegedly misleading consumers about climate change, including historically undermining&nbsp;climate science and even now using&nbsp;deceptive advertising about the companies\u2019 role in leading solutions to the climate&nbsp;crisis. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[2688,29957,5317,29959,4390],"class_list":["post-53925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-big-oil","tag-dana-drugmand","tag-desmog-blog","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-exxon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53926,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53925\/revisions\/53926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}