Maine officials filed a lawsuit against the oil and gas industry Tuesday in an attempt to make energy producers pay billions of dollars for allegedly misleading consumers about the climate effects of burning fossil fuels.
The move makes Maine the ninth state in the country to sue oil and gas companies over climate change, reflecting a surge in legal challenges against the industry by dozens of local governments nationwide. But the case also comes amid growing uncertainty about the future of climate-related lawsuits.
The oil and gas industry and its allies have asked the Supreme Court to quash the cases, through two petitions that are pending before the conservative-leaning high court. The Maine lawsuit was filed less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, after campaigning on a promise to renew his efforts to block the climate cases.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey filed the suit Tuesday against five of the largest U.S. fossil fuel companies and the American Petroleum Institute (API), saying the state has suffered damages to human health and property “as a direct and proximate result of the fossil fuel defendants’ failure to warn about the unreasonably dangerous conditions of their fossil fuel products.”
