Exxon Strike Back, Sues AG Over Climate Investigation

Contending that the civil investigation demand by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and other state attorneys general are part of a ruse to obtain “confidential records of fossil fuel companies,” ExxonMobil is seeking to quash the CID with an injunction in a Texas federal court. The state attorneys general say they are trying to determine whether the company misled investors and the public regarding climate change and its potential impact on the company’s business. Exxon contends that complying with the CID would entail a massive e-discovery job involving millions of documents. According to the company, the case of the attorneys general is based on “the false premise that ExxonMobil reached definitive conclusions about anthropogenic climate change before the world’s experts and before the science itself had matured, and then withheld it from the broader scientific community.” That claim, the company says, “is preposterous.”