By Michael Sol Warren, NJ Spotlight News
New Jersey’s legal claims that deceptive actions by major oil companies encouraged the unchecked burning of fossil fuels and worsening of climate change have been dismissed.
State Superior Court Judge Douglas Hurd in Mercer County ordered the state’s lawsuit dismissed Wednesday. Hurd wrote in his opinion that only federal law can govern the claims made by New Jersey, agreeing with arguments made by the oil companies’ lawyers.
“Only federal law can govern Plaintiffs’ interstate and international emissions claims because ‘the basic scheme of the Constitution so demands,’” Hurd wrote in his opinion. “Therefore, Plaintiffs’ complaint is hereby dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim.”
The decision is a blow to the state’s efforts to hold oil companies accountable for damages caused by climate change. The lawsuit, filed in 2022, claimed that oil industry actions to obfuscate connections between burning fossil fuels and global warming, despite industry scientists being aware of such links as far back as the 1950s, violated state law. Many of the world’s largest oil companies — ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips — as well as the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade association, were named as defendants. The attorney general’s office on Wednesday pledged to appeal the dismissal.
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