Energy In Depth – a research, education, and public outreach campaign of the Independent Petroleum Association of America – has been getting the facts out about responsible oil and natural gas development since 2009. The Energy In Depth – Climate and Environment website is EID’s one-stop-shop for information specific to climate change. This includes information on how the U.S. oil and gas industry is part of the solution to address climate change and is helping reduce domestic and global emissions.

In fact, data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions continue to decline despite increased production and consumption of oil and natural gas.

On this website, EID also takes a closer look at the efforts to sue energy producers over the impacts of climate change. These lawsuits are a tactical component of a broader anti-fossil fuel activist campaign known as “Keep It In the Ground,” which seeks to prevent production of oil and natural gas, regardless of the environmental, economic or reliability impacts of doing so.

Proponents say these lawsuits and related campaigns are intended to combat climate change, but in reality, they are a weapon to shut down American energy producers and funnel money into activist groups and plaintiffs’ attorneys. EID Climate provides an inside look at the incredible amount of money that is being directed toward the highly coordinated litigation and its proponents who concocted this playbook years ago and are continuing to push it, despite multiple failed arguments, no wins and no strategies on mitigating climate change to aid everyday citizens.

As activists coordinate these lawsuits with state attorney generals (Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York to name a few), little to no work is being put forth by players involved or their funders to actually find climate change solutions.

Rather, those solutions are coming directly from industry. Companies are acting now to research, develop, and fund the kinds of next-generation technologies that are improving efficiency and reducing emissions, all while keeping affordable and abundant energy available to consumers.

How the New York Attorney General’s Failed Case Foreshadows Current and Future Lawsuits

In 2015, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced an investigation into ExxonMobil, seeking to verify the claims made by the reporters who were paid by the Rockefeller Family Fund to publish a series of stories that used misleading and cherry-picked documents to suggest that the company hid climate science from the public.

Three years later, in October 2018, Schneiderman gave up on these accusations and instead sued the company with a lawsuit that focused on an obscure accounting question. Following this lawsuit, activists groups like the Rockefeller Family Fund collaborated to continue the next phase of the “Exxon Knew” campaign, including coordinated media tactics and plans to influence other AGs to file suit.

At trial, the New York AG couldn’t provide any evidence that company had misled anyone, despite a five-year investigation and reviewing millions of pages of internal company documents. The lawsuit was dismissed in late 2019 by New York Supreme Court Justice Barry R. Ostrager, who deemed the case “ill-conceived,” “hyperbolic,” and “politically motivated.”

Elsewhere, federal judges in both California and New York have dismissed cases where multiple energy producers have been sued over alleged climate damages and “consumer deception.” This litigation is rooted in echoing the false and disproven arguments shouted by activists. But the result is always the same: These accusations cannot stand up to even the most basic scrutiny, resulting in wasted taxpayer resources and squandered opportunities for commonsense solutions to address climate change.

AGs like Keith Ellison and TJ Donovan are on the fourth, fifth and even sixth legal arguments against oil and natural gas companies because the first several cases failed to find purchase. New York’s case is a lesson to all other would-be climate litigants or inquisitors: a pig with lipstick on is still a pig, just as the same failed witch-hunt with a different politician’s initials signed next to it is still a losing argument.

Looking to learn more? Click here for a full timeline of #ExxonKnew’s developments and failures through the years.