The oil and gas industry is seeking to dismiss a climate lawsuit in Pennsylvania, arguing that leaders of a county located just north of Philadelphia violated the state’s Sunshine Act when they agreed to pursue the litigation.
If successful, the motion to dismiss filed by 14 fossil fuel producers and the American Petroleum Institute would end Pennsylvania’s first attempt to hold the oil industry financially accountable for wildfires, storms and other disasters worsened by climate change. Bucks County in March joined a sprawling legal fight launched by more than two dozen local governments across the nation, arguing that oil executives misled the public for decades about the dangers of burning fossil fuels.
The motion to dismiss filed Aug. 5 in the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas argued that the lawsuit is unlawful because the public was never given an opportunity to consider whether the county should enter the legal fray.
Oil industry lawyers say that county commissioners who approved the case violated Pennsylvania’s public records law “by failing to authorize the initiation of this lawsuit at a properly noticed open public meeting, thus depriving the public of meaningful notice and an opportunity to comment on the county’s action.”
