Environmentalists Think Kamala Harris May Go After Big Oil For Climate Crimes

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Environmentalists want the Justice Department to hold Big Oil accountable and think Kamala Harris is the right person to make that happen if she is elected president. The basis for any prosecution would be the decades Big Oil and its associated fossil fuel companies spent spreading climate disinformation, not the actual harm to the environment done by using their products, the environmentalists told The Guardian. Forty US states and municipalities have sued Big Oil for allegedly spreading climate disinformation.

For years, environmentalists and some lawmakers have said the Department of Justice should file a similar case. So far, it has failed to do so, even while Joe Biden, who ran on a climate-focused agenda, has been in office. “We get the sense that [the Biden attorney general] Merrick Garland has no interest in pursuing this issue,” said Richard Wiles, president of the non-profit Center for Climate Integrity, which supports climate litigation.

Harris Is Perfect Person To Prosecute Big Oil

That could change under Kamala Harris’s leadership, said Jamie Henn, director of the climate accountability non-profit Fossil Free Media, who recently wrote that Harris is the “perfect person” to prosecute the case. He is calling on Harris to make climate accountability a priority by empowering federal regulators to target alleged price gouging from oil companies and appointing an attorney general who is willing to lead a new lawsuit on behalf of the Department of Justice — which operates independently of the White House. “It’s to be determined if she’s really willing to take all this up,” he said. “But I think that there’s a lot of signs that she could and she has the ability.”

We here at CleanTechnica can think of several ideal candidates for the job. Sheldon Whitehouse, the junior senator from Rhode Island, has been a fierce and unflinching critic of the fossil fuel industry for his entire political career. He apparently is not on Harris’ short list of vice president candidates, but he would be ideal as Attorney General. He also has not been shy about getting up in the grille of the right wing lunatics on the US Supreme Court — another checkmark in the plus column for Whitehouse. Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland is another bare knuckled brawler who would be a great choice for AG, as would Adam Schiff of California.

Harris Confronted Big Oil As Attorney General Of California

Before serving as a US senator and vice president in the Biden administration, Harris was California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017. In that role, she launched an investigation into how ExxonMobil chose to frame its position on climate risks in January 2016.

That spring, she also won a major indictment in a criminal case against the Plains All-American Pipeline over an oil spill in Santa Barbara. Harris additionally played a key role in landing a $15 billion settlement from Volkswagen after the Environmental Protection Agency found it had illegally installed software in diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions testing. Months later, she secured a $14 million settlement from BP subsidiaries over charges related to leaking underground fuel storage tanks.

During her time as the attorney general of California, she also went after ConocoPhillips — the company behind the controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska — for air quality violations at their gas stations — and filed other lawsuits against Chevron and the Southern California Gas Company. She also successfully sued the Obama administration over its plans to permit fracking in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, which demonstrated an “impressive” willingness to “even stand up to Democrats,” said Henn. “She’s got a strong background on going after big polluters, so when it comes to pressing this case, she’s the right person for the job,” he added.

Harris voiced support for climate litigation during her 2019 presidential primary campaign, telling Mother Jones that the US Department of Justice should “absolutely” investigate fossil fuel companies for “creating incredible harm in our communities. It’s about having the conviction to take these guys into court and to hold them accountable,” she said. “Let’s get them not only in the pocketbook, but let’s make sure there are severe and serious penalties for their behavior.”

Harris Calls Out Trump

In her first campaign speech in Milwaukee last week, Harris called out Donald Trump for his ties to the oil industry, citing reports that the former president “literally promised big oil companies and big oil lobbyists he would do their bidding for $1 billion in campaign donations.” That makes some of us wonder if the former president could be indicted for corruption. If any other politician did such a thing, the authorities would be all over him like white on rice, and it’s not like his saying it was part of any official duties as a sitting president — the “get out or jail free” card handed to him by a compliant Supreme Court on July 1. Perhaps this administration doesn’t want to pull that lever so close to the election, but it should do so on November 6, just as soon as the voters make Kamala Harris the next president of the United States.

Other statements by Harris are not what environmentalists want to hear, however. Just this week she said she would not ban fracking if elected, walking back on statements she made in 2019. In 2015, she filed an opinion claiming a California-wide fracking ban would be illegal. “We’ve seen two different sides of Kamala Harris: she’s a really inspiring candidate when she embraces progressive issues and picks big fights, and then she can fall flat when she becomes too cautious,” said Henn.

In an emailed statement to The Guardian, the American Petroleum Institute said, “Any future administration should be focused on building on the progress the US has made in leading the world in both energy production and emissions reductions.” It called the demand for Harris to focus on climate accountability a “distraction.”‘

While Richard Wiles is optimistic about the prospects of litigation from states and municipalities bringing forth climate accountability, he believes a suit brought by the Justice Department would be even more powerful, in that it could prevent the fossil fuel industry from circulating misleading claims about the climate crisis and prevent greenwashing. “The DoJ is a completely different animal,” Wiles said. “Its power is far greater than any attorney general’s office in a state. They have the FBI, they have a lot more investigative resources, and they’ve got a lot more authority than a state attorney general is ever going to have.”

Henn said if Harris commits to going after the oil industry, she could drum up support from young voters. Such a move could even excite Republicans who are concerned about corporate overreach, he said. A survey from the progressive polling firm Data for Progress earlier this year found that a majority of voters support climate accountability litigation.

The Takeaway

The best way to deal with a bully is to punch him (it is quite often a him) in the nose. It has been shown to be effective with sharks and bears and it has served Harris well so far as she has successfully blown the smoke sent her way by a disgraced former president back in his direction quite successfully. There is no bigger bully on the block in America (and most other countries) than Big Oil and the rest of the fossil fuel industry, which has done so much to demonize climate science, clean energy programs, electric cars, and any other ideas that might diminish the outrageous profits they have made by destroying the environment for their private gain.

It would be such a pleasure to see Charles Koch and his slimy coterie of friends get the comeuppance they so richly deserve. Is Kamala Harris the one to do it? We sincerely hope so.