OR AG Ellen Rosenblum: 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 Oregonians -- 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 billions in damages and forced widespread water cutbacks. Intense wildfires are costing the state budget tens of millions of dollars a year. Sea level rise is already harming Oregon's coastal communities. And the risks of continued global warming pollution to the state are many times greater.

The Oregon Attorney General's Office should use all of the tools at its disposal to prosecute Exxon’s deliberate deception -- such as state RICO laws, Oregon’s Unlawful Practices statute (ORS 646.607), consumer fraud statutes, or any other laws that are intended to protect Oregonian 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.