by Steve Hayward
Powerline

Readers may be vaguely aware that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and two other AGs filed suit again ExxonMobil alleging that “they knew” about climate change decades ago, but have been practicing “deception” ever since. These lawsuits all came with subpoena demands for thousands of pages of documents, no doubt hoping to turn up . . . what exactly? This is a transparent attempt to turn policy disagreements into legal culpability. In fact there is considerable evidence that this legal action was part of a political strategy hit upon by environmentalists to replicate the experience of tobacco litigation.

ExxonMobil has not been taking this attack supinely. In a legal filing yesterday in Texas, the company notes:

Even though it has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change, supported the Paris climate accords, and backed a revenue-neutral carbon tax, ExxonMobil has nevertheless been targeted by state and local governments for pretextual investigations and litigation intended to cleanse the public square of alternative viewpoints.

The motion ExxonMobil filed yesterday in Texas identifies 16 individuals who it believes conspired to get the attorneys general to bring this action. Some evidence of this collaboration may have been destroyed. ExxonMobil wishes to depose these 16.

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