The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is in hot water as a prolonged legal battle revealed the state ignored policies to limit emissions tied to climate change.
The state sued Exxon Mobil over claims it misled the public and investors about the energy company’s hydrocarbon burning policies. States and local governments across the country have sought large damages in recent years from energy companies over alleged ties to climate change.
However, ExxonMobil initiated a counter lawsuit that requested public records from the state’s database on initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The public records revealed Massachusetts agencies never complied with a 2017 rule calling for cuts to emissions produced by state-owned vehicles. The agencies with at least 30 or more passenger vehicles were called to reduce pollution from the vehicles by a certain amount each year.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection never received confirmation of agency compliance or reports following up on the policy’s environmental impact.
Jack Pirozzolo, a lawyer for ExxonMobil, expressed frustration in response to DEP’s emergency motion for more time to produce the public records. He said officials did not produce appropriate records and called on the judge to grant a targeted search of the DEP Commissioner’s office.
“After more than 15 months of insisting it would find no more documents even were it ‘to look again,’ DEP looked again and found responsive public records its initial search had missed,” Pirozzolo wrote.
The move was included as part of efforts to cut in half climate emissions by 2030 from its levels in 1990 and move to zero car emissions for state vehicles by 2050.
The state has allocated tens of millions of dollars for insfrastructure supporting electric vehicles such as charging stations and electric school buses.
The case has highlighted an important issue of whether states and local governments can sue energy companies for millions of dollars in damages over climate change concerns.
The question will be answered by the U.S. Supreme Court after it takes on Suncor v. Boulder County Commissioners on Oct. 5. The Colorado case challenges whether Boulder officials can sue energy companies for millions of dollars in damages over greenhouse gas emissions.
State officials sought damages based on nuisance laws, policies that protect property rights for neighbors when one individual does damage to someone’s property.
“DEP’s inaccurate representations throughout this case, including in sworn affidavits, combined with its ongoing failure to acknowledge the myriad defects in its response to the Lawful Request, require this Court’s intervention,” Pirozzolo wrote.
Lawyers for the Massachusetts DEP said they misunderstood the initial public records request, specifically regarding what kinds of documents could be provided.
“It became clear that Mr. Pirozzolo had a broader term for the definition of ‘Executive Office’ used in his Public Records Request than DEP had used when searching for and responding to that request,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell wrote.
Pirozzolo pointed to documents from DEP that did not contain any information about certain agencies’ compliance with records.
“Discovery has revealed that Defendants did not simply fail to search for and produce records associated with certain executive offices,” Pirozzolo said. “Rather, it has revealed that DEP’s haphazard search systematically omitted relevant repositories, relevant custodians, relevant search terms, and ultimately relevant responsive records.”