Maine sues energy companies, saying they failed to warn about climate change

Attorney General Aaron Frey said he intends to hold the companies accountable for concealing knowledge about the consequences of fossil fuels.

Posted November 26, 2024

Stephen Singer

Portland Press Herald

EXCERPTS

Maine on Tuesday sued several big players in the energy industry over accusations they developed fossil fuel products despite knowing about the damage to the climate caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

Attorney General Aaron Frey sued BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Sunoco and the American Petroleum Institute, saying the companies and industry group deceived Mainers about the “role of fossil fuel products in causing climate change.” The lawsuit was filed in Cumberland County Superior Court. 

Frey, who is seeking reelection, said he intends to hold the energy companies accountable for “failing to warn Mainers and concealing their knowledge about the devastating consequences of the increasing use of fossil fuels on Maine’s people, economy and environment.”

The result has been significant financial and public health costs, property damage and other harms, he said.

“For over half a century, these companies chose to fuel profits instead of following their own science to prevent what are now likely irreversible, catastrophic climate effects,” Frey said.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. of the Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, which represents Chevron, said in an emailed statement that addressing climate change “requires a coordinated federal and international policy response, not meritless state court litigation attacking essential energy production.”

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Identical claims have been dismissed by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York and state courts in Delaware and Maryland, he said. Boutrous cited a Baltimore city court that said state law cannot provide a remedy to claims “involving foreign emissions.”....................................................

................................Frey, who is being challenged for reelection by fellow Democrat Maeghan Maloney, the district attorney for Kennebec and Somerset counties, reminded state legislators who will vote for the next attorney general that he stood up to President-elect Donald Trump during his first term and some conservative states on several issues.

Trump has promised to overturn many, if not most, of President Biden’s green energy policies on offshore wind, natural gas and oil development and other issues.

 

Please see the entire article at https://www.pressherald.com/2024/11/26/maine-joins-lawsuit-accusing...

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Comment by Willem Post on November 28, 2024 at 8:42am

Maine suing energy companies is pure money grabbing and harassment and desperation 

Maine is emulating dysfunctional California, etc.

Maine woke, leftist, Socialist, illegal-alien coddler, bureaucrats see federal wind/solar subsidies evaporate, after Trump was re-elected by 77 million votes, and see their phony structure of energy programs, serving various elites, including foreign elites, collapsing.

Comment by Willem Post on November 28, 2024 at 8:29am

In 2023, 82.5% of world energy consumption came from coal, oil, and gas, with the rest from hydro, tree burning, nuclear, and some highly subsidized, very expensive, but grid disturbing wind and solar, that could not exist on the grid without fossil fuel plants to counteract the up/down outputs of W/S, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365

Fossil fuels are the greatest gift to mankind, especially for about 80% of the world population, including China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc., all of them happen to be BRICS+ countries as well

The BRICS group will soon have more than 30 countries as members and applicants

Comment by Dan McKay on November 27, 2024 at 3:11pm

Just what does this nut think he is going to accomplish? We need to get the grownups back into the justice department.

Comment by arthur qwenk on November 27, 2024 at 9:05am
Lawfare against oil in Maine. How non-creative!
 The left wing green  disease grows more every week in Maine.
A diseased state, just like California.

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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