AG Kamala Harris: Prosecute Exxon for Climate Deception

Newly revealed documents show that Exxon’s own scientists were aware of and studying the dangerous impacts of greenhouse gases in the 1970s and 1980s -- until Exxon’s leadership decided to shut down the research and promote climate denial instead, in order to protect the company’s unfathomably large profits.

Now Californians -- like all other American citizens -- are suffering from the damages of Exxon's unlimited greenhouse pollution. The unprecedented drought, fueled by global warming, has already caused $5 billion in damages and cost California thousands of jobs. Intense wildfires are costing the state budget hundreds of millions of dollars a year and causing billions in damages. Sea level rise is already harming California's coastal communities. And the risks of continued global warming pollution to the state are many times greater.

The California Attorney General's Office should use all of the tools at its disposal to prosecute Exxon’s deliberate deception -- such as state RICO laws, California’s Unfair Business Practices statute (Bus. & Prof. Code sec. 17200 et seq.), consumer fraud statutes, or any other laws that are intended to protect California citizens from deliberate corporate misconduct.

The attorneys general of 46 states successfully sued tobacco companies to pay for decades of deadly deceit -- now it’s time for Exxon and the fossil-fuel industry to pay for their climate crimes.