Hawaii's climate lawsuits against energy companies reveal the left's agenda
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For years, California was the poster child for environmental overkill. That distinction now belongs to Hawaii. About 2,400 miles from the West Coast and without a single oil field, the Aloha State depends on imports to fuel its tourism industry, power its grid and make everyday life possible.
But Hawaii's dependence on oil has not stopped the fight against the energy companies. Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez and Honolulu and Maui are suing the oil and gas industry for untold billions based on weather-related damages. These sweeping lawsuits expose the political corruption affecting Hawaii's legal system and call for a federal investigation into Hawaii's lack of transparency in the energy industry.
First, the lawsuits do not include the country's only refinery and leading supplier of gasoline and jet fuel, Par Pacific and its subsidiary Par Hawaii. According to the campaign finance documents, its managers donated to the leaders of the Democratic Republic of the state, including Gov. Josh Green. But under Hawaii's theory of the case, the state's energy refiners, not to mention its energy users, produce emissions that are extremely damaging to the islands' environment.
Second, courts in other blue-chip jurisdictions have repeatedly rejected similar cases, citing long-standing precedent that places the federal government in charge of setting emissions standards between states and countries.
CLIMATE JUSTICE GROUP HAS DEEP RELATIONSHIPS WITH JUDGES, PROFESSIONALS INVOLVED IN LITIGATION BETWEEN INCIDENTAL CLAIMS.
The fight over climate change has moved to federal courts in places like Hawaii, where they are battling energy companies in court cases. (Barbara Alper/Getty Images)
But prominent Aloha County judges, including those involved in the Honolulu case, have collaborated with the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and its Climate Justice Project (CJP), calling the federal judge's impartiality into question. The organizations share staff and donors with Sher Edling LLP, the law firm that represents Honolulu and many other local governments suing energy companies over climate change.
The close relationship between ELI and climate advocates did not prevent three Hawaii Supreme Court justices from participating in ELI-CLP sponsored events. One of them, Chief Judge Mark Recktenwald also ordered his clerk to help an expert working on climate cases understand the Daubert standard “used by judges to evaluate the scientific evidence of an expert witness” and previously provided a “helpful” primer to Kerry Emmanuel, an expert retained by climate plaintiffs in another case against the energy industry.
Despite these outside efforts, Chief Justice Recktenwald wrote the opinion for the Hawaii Supreme Court in Honolulu. case, which brought a major breakthrough for climate plaintiffs. One of the chief justice's colleagues expressed his bias even more in a concurrence that suggested that the US Supreme Court should reach the same result regardless of the text of the state law because the supreme court “can use a little Aloha.”
SUPREME COURT SHOULD STOP WEATHER ACCESS TO OUR POWER INDUSTRY
Third, after the Hawaii Supreme Court refused to dismiss the Honolulu case, a lower district court that presided over plaintiffs' attorneys used the discovery to launch a fishing campaign for a broader anti-enforcement campaign. Hawaii courts had to temporarily halt the proceedings while the basic legal question involved in nearly 30 similar cases — whether the state's lawsuits against energy companies over climate change belong in federal or state court — is currently being considered by the US Supreme Court in Suncor Energy v. Boulder County.
Besides Hawaii, judges in California, New Jersey and elsewhere have temporarily halted climate litigation for obvious reasons. The Supreme Court receives thousands of appeals every year, but agrees to hear only a fraction of them. In the extremely rare event that a case reaches the highest court of the land, there is a distinct possibility that the justices will set a new standard or strike out all classes of claims entirely.
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Honolulu is effectively running to produce high-profile documents and hundreds of sworn testimony before the decision reduces or eliminates the legal basis of all these suits. The court-appointed special expert in charge of the case has ordered the energy companies to examine their files for 75 years of documents related to the production and sale of energy products around the world.
Despite the huge costs that this paper will incur to the companies, the documents will not prove the deception of the consumers. That requires the company to hide information that the public did not know. Consumers have been aware of global warming for decades but have chosen to use fossil fuels at the same rates they did 50 years ago.
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More information about climate change would be helpful but not compelling enough to make much of the world stop looking for the energy they need to do the things they want, like cooling their homes, powering their machines, and maybe even a vacation in Hawaii. That's assuming the Aloha State hasn't opened up the tourism industry to help and support oil and gas producers.
Michael Toth is director of research at the Civitas Institute.
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