DC court sends fossil fuel fraud case to discovery

🏛️D.C. Superior Court JYJudge Yvonne Williams denied fossil fuel companies' motions for reconsideration and interlocutory appeal on Jul. 10, 2025, forcing ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP toward discovery and trial in the District's consumer protection lawsuit filed Jun. 25, 2020. The companies spent five years using procedural motions to avoid exposing internal documents proving decades of climate deception.

🏛️D.C. Attorney General KRKarl Racine sued under the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act, charging that oil companies violated local law by misleading consumers about climate impacts while their internal scientists accurately predicted atmospheric CO2 would reach 415 parts per million by 2019. Exxon's 1982 predictions proved exactly correct when CO2 surpassed 415 ppm on May 11, 2019.

Judge Williams found that 'reasonable consumers can be aware of the concept of climate change and still be deceived by an oil company's clever advertising' or 'clever omissions,' destroying companies' defense that widespread climate awareness prevents consumer deception. This legal finding enables fraud prosecution even when consumers understand general climate science.

Congressional appropriations bills specifically target 🏛️D.C.'s lawsuit, proposing to prohibit the District from using any funds to enforce consumer protection laws 'against oil and gas companies for environmental claims.' Sixteen Republican attorneys general asked U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to create 'liability shields' protecting fossil fuel companies from state climate lawsuits.

Williams described 🏛️D.C.'s evidence as revealing 'a decades-long story of deceit' rather than cherry-picked examples, indicating systematic corporate fraud spanning multiple decades. The Center for Climate Integrity noted that while companies now claim climate leadership, 'they continue to run marketing and lobbying campaigns intended to mislead policymakers and the public.'

A 1969 supplement to the 1968 APAmerican Petroleum Institute report accurately predicted atmospheric CO2 would rise from 280 to 370 parts per million by 2000, reaching exactly 369 ppm. This precision from industry-funded scientists proves oil companies possessed detailed knowledge of climate consequences while simultaneously funding public disinformation campaigns through front groups and trade associations.

Williams rejected oil companies' attempts to escape liability for statements by front groups and trade associations, noting 'a jury could very well find that BP Defendants understood the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, and funded, controlled, and participated in third-party associations that misrepresented to the public that there was a lack of consensus.'