Exxon Adds New York to Suit in Bid to Stop Climate Change Probe

By | November 14, 2016

Exxon Mobil Corp. sued New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to stop his investigation into what the company knew about climate change.

The oil giant on Thursday revised a lawsuit it filed in June against Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in Texas ruled Thursday that the company could add New York to the case.

The company said in its filing that the two attorneys general were “conducting improper and politically motivated investigations of Exxon Mobil in a coordinated effort to silence and intimidate one side of the public policy debate on how to address climate change.”

Massachusetts, New York and other states are investigating whether Exxon Mobil violated securities laws and consumer-protection rules by withholding information allegedly obtained as early as the 1970s that man-made emissions were changing the climate.

A Schneiderman representative couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the Friday Veterans Day holiday.

Healey argued in a filing Monday that Exxon Mobil was trying to use the Texas court to dodge an Oct. 26 order by a New York court to comply with a subpoena to turn over accounting documents about how climate change will affect its finances.

The case is Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Healey, 16-cv-00469, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Fort Worth)

Topics Lawsuits Texas New York Climate Change

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