Minnesota environmental groups applaud attorney general’s legal fight against oil industry giants

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 24, 2020

MEDIA CONTACTS: 
Steve Morse
Executive Director
stevemorse@mepartnership.org

Sara Wolff
Advocacy Director
sara@mepartnership.org

ST. PAUL, MN – Today, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced his office’s filing of a consumer protection lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute (API). The lawsuit targets these oil and gas industry players’ long-term disinformation efforts against climate science and clean energy, efforts that served to prop up their industries at the expense of the climate and public health.

These oil giants have long wielded enormous influence in the energy sector and in politics, and their duplicitous efforts to maintain demand for petroleum products and their lobbying for climate change denial have delayed and quashed climate action policies for years. The oil industry has known for decades that their products are heating up the planet and has spent billions to cover up this fact.

Minnesota has a direct interest in winning accountability for the fossil fuel industry’s deception. It is one of the fastest-warming states in the nation, and scientists are already measuring dramatic and harmful changes to the state as a result. With the fifth-most productive agricultural sector in the nation, Minnesota’s economy is especially vulnerable to changes in precipitation and temperature patterns. The state’s people, wildlife, and ecosystems are in harm’s way.

“It’s about time that these multinational corporations are held accountable for the harm that they’ve wrought,” said Steve Morse, Executive Director of Minnesota Environmental Partnership (MEP). “Through its lobbying, greenwashing, and misleading advertising, these oil conglomerates have been complicit in the growth of the climate crisis. Attorney General Ellison’s litigation on behalf of Minnesotans is a welcome defense of our lives and our values, and we hope it will lead the way for other measures to hold these companies responsible for their deception.”

Three MEP member groups had representatives who spoke at the Attorney General’s press conference: Martin Larsen, a farmer and member of the Land Stewardship Project, Sam Grant, Executive Director of MN350, and Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of Honor the Earth, in addition to Juwaria Jama of the Minnesota Youth Climate Strike. MEP stands with these leaders in support of this litigation to bring justice for Minnesotans suffering from Big Oil’s deceptions.