Bucks County climate lawsuit against big oil tossed by Pa. judge

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A Pennsylvania judge has dismissed a climate lawsuit Bucks County hoped would force fossil fuel companies to help it pay to fix bridges, retrofit buildings and install stormwater management projects to deal with worsening flooding.

The county’s suit, filed last year against Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66 and a petroleum industry trade group, argued the oil companies knew but intentionally covered up the role their products play in warming the planet.

Court of Common Pleas Judge Stephen Corr dismissed the suit Friday, saying the county’s claims are outside the scope of state law.

“Today we join a growing chorus of state and federal courts across the United States, singing from the same hymnal, in concluding that the claims raised by Bucks County are not judiciable by any state court in Pennsylvania,” Corr wrote in his order.

Judge Corr referred to dismissals by other state courts of similar cases, filed by states and cities including New Jersey and Baltimore. But even more courts have allowed such cases, including those filed by Washington, D.C., Vermont and Boulder, Colorado, to go forward, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

“They’ve been going in both directions,” Gerrard said. “[This decision is] more piling on one side — and then there’s a pile on the other side.”

Scientists say it’s “unequivocal” that human activity — including burning fossil fuels — is warming the planet. Flood risk in the northeastern U.S. is getting worse, as heavy precipitation events become more frequent and intense and sea level rise accelerates.

In 2023, seven people, including two young children, died during a flash flood in Upper Makefield in Bucks County.

A dispute over the state court’s power

Judge Corr, a Republican, wrote that while on its face Bucks County’s lawsuit was about deception, the core of the suit concerned greenhouse gas emissions. He wrote that the federal Clean Air Act preempts Pennsylvania state law, making emissions the “sole province of the federal government.”

“Counsel for Bucks County conceded that the advertising, production, transport, and sale of Defendants’ fossil fuel products in Bucks County did not cause any harm to the County. The combustion of those fossil fuel products by the citizens of Bucks County, and the County itself, produced greenhouse gas emissions,” Corr wrote. “If there were no emissions there would be no damages.”

In similar cases, however, judges have ruled the lawsuits belonged in state court, not federal court, Gerrard said. This means Bucks County’s only option might be to appeal the case on the state level.

“If the state courts don’t have jurisdiction, then nobody does,” Gerrard said.

Bucks County plans to appeal the dismissal to Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court, spokesperson James O’Malley wrote in an email.

“Although the Court concluded that the County’s claims were preempted by federal law, many courts have reached the opposite conclusion,” he wrote.

Oil company cheers the case’s dismissal

Chevron’s lawyer, Ted Boutrous, said his client is “very pleased” with Judge Corr’s ruling.

Boutrous said climate change is an issue that should be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency — but not one that should be hashed out in the courts.

“Climate change is an important issue, but it’s a policy issue that needs statewide, nationwide, global cooperation to resolve,” Boutrous said. “These state lawsuits just don’t really do anything other than clog the courts.”

Bucks County’s suit alleged that since the 1950s, fossil fuel industry scientists concluded fossil fuels produced greenhouse gas pollution that “can have catastrophic consequences for the planet and its people” — but instead of sharing this information with the public, the companies mounted a “disinformation campaign” to discredit this scientific consensus.

Boutrous denied this. He said the science of climate change was “widely known” during the time period Bucks County references, and he said consumers and local governments have benefitted from the use of fossil fuels, as well.

“To just pin the costs on Chevron and other companies, it’s unfair and it makes no sense,” he said.