A gas flare illuminates the night sky over a Shell Chemical LP petroleum refinery in this 2019 photo from Norco, Louisiana. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
With his May indecision on Annapolis and Anne Arundel County’s climate lawsuits — which allege that fossil fuel companies knew about the dangers of climate change but hid it so they could keep marketing their product — Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Steven Platt has failed Marylanders.
While reasonable people can disagree about the best ways to address the effects of climate change in our communities, it seems clear that we should rule out expensive, baseless lawfare as an option – which only hurts Maryland residents and small businesses by potentially driving up energy prices.
With so many other clear, pressing local issues, Marylanders should insist that public servants focus their attention on problems close to home. With a hearing this Friday on a motion to dismiss these cases, we should make our voices heard for Judge Platt to do just that.
To date, Judge Platt is most clearly letting residents down by failing to properly apply the law in the first place. He has a duty to make decisions according to the letter of the law, and he is abdicating that responsibility by kicking the can down the road and not addressing the core claims in this case.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already made clear through previous decisions that individual companies cannot be held liable for the local effects of climate change, which is a global challenge and one more appropriately for regulators and Congress to address. Punishing energy producers – whose totally legal products Marylanders require to run our businesses and raise our families – for alleged climate-related impacts is not just an unhelpful approach, it’s also illogical.
As one of my predecessors in the Maryland House of Delegates, and a former member of Congress, Al Wynn, recently put it: “Flooding in the nearby harbor area of Annapolis, Maryland, was likely the result of climate change, but it would be foolhardy to suggest it was the fault of a particular company or industry.”
If public officials continue down this path, we will simply raise energy costs for our constituents, who are already bracing for increases to their monthly bills – as high as $18 per month – due to power plant closures and an aging power grid system. According to Baltimore Gas and Electric, this adds up to an 11% monthly hit to Maryland household budgets.
In addition, with less energy supply available as companies divert resources away from production because of potential legal damages, energy costs only stand to increase. The last thing families need is another unnecessary cost on top of this – one that could have been prevented by good judicial decision-making.
By allowing the lawsuits to continue, when they are likely going to fail in higher courts, Judge Platt isn’t just risking energy bill spikes, but he’s also wasting taxpayer resources and policymakers’ time. It is also his duty to be a good steward of our state’s funds – he has let us down there, too.
The longer the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County lawsuits linger on, they stand to become boondoggles for out-of-state trial lawyers who increasingly bill their time to work on these cases. With pressing local issues like affordable housing, zoning reform, and crime and drugs, our public servants don’t have time for solutions in search of problems.
Other Maryland judges have shown that they know better, and have made the right decision. In July, Baltimore City Circuit Judge Videtta Brown, a Gov. Martin O’Malley appointee, correctly dismissed a virtually identical case (filed by the same out-of-state trial lawyers), emphasizing several key facts.
She stated upfront that, “Global pollution-based complaints were never intended by Congress to be handled by individual states.” She made clear the case didn’t even make sense under Maryland laws, stating that “state law cannot provide a remedy to claims involving foreign emissions.”
Judge Brown also criticized Baltimore officials who brought the suit with a nonsensical “misinformation” claim for trying to “get in the back door what they cannot get in the front door.”
On Oct. 25, Judge Platt has a chance to follow Judge Brown’s example and set all this right by dismissing these cases. We should encourage him to do so.
And going forward, Maryland officials should not repeat Baltimore, Annapolis and Anne Arundel County officials’ mistake but focus instead on the tools that the Maryland state government and the federal government have made available. For example, President Joe Biden’s landmark bipartisan infrastructure law has made millions available for local climate mitigation and infrastructure projects.
A better example of good governance should be accessing those resources rather than pursue ineffective lawsuits that don’t even comply with Maryland’s laws. Our policymakers should roll up their sleeves and get to work securing these funds – and judges should not stand in the way.