Bucks County climate lawsuit against big oil tossed by Pa. judge

The county hoped to make fossil fuel companies pay to help it address the impacts of climate change, such as worsening flood risk.

• By Sophia Schmidt/ WHYY

A Pennsylvania judge has dismissed a climate lawsuit Bucks County hoped would force fossil fuel companies to help it pay to fix bridges, retrofit buildings and install stormwater management projects to deal with worsening flooding.

The county’s suit, filed last year against Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66 and a petroleum industry trade group, argued the oil companies knew but intentionally covered up the role their products play in warming the planet.

Court of Common Pleas Judge Stephen Corr dismissed the suit Friday, saying the county’s claims are outside the scope of state law.

“Today we join a growing chorus of state and federal courts across the United States, singing from the same hymnal, in concluding that the claims raised by Bucks County are not judiciable by any state court in Pennsylvania,” Corr wrote in his order.

Judge Corr referred to dismissals by other state courts of similar cases, filed by states and cities including New Jersey and Baltimore. But even more courts have allowed such cases, including those filed by Washington, D.C., Vermont and Boulder, Colorado, to go forward, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

“They’ve been going in both directions,” Gerrard said. “[This decision is] more piling on one side — and then there’s a pile on the other side.”

Scientists say it’s “unequivocal” that human activity — including burning fossil fuels — is warming the planet. Flood risk in the northeastern U.S. is getting worse, as heavy precipitation events become more frequent and intense and sea level rise accelerates.

In 2023, seven people, including two young children, died during a flash flood in Upper Makefield in Bucks County.

A dispute over the state court’s jurisdiction

Judge Corr, a Republican, wrote that while on its face Bucks County’s lawsuit was about deception, the core of the suit concerned greenhouse gas emissions. He wrote that the federal Clean Air Act preempts Pennsylvania state law, making emissions the “sole province of the federal government.”

“Counsel for Bucks County conceded that the advertising, production, transport, and sale of Defendants’ fossil fuel products in Bucks County did not cause any harm to the County. The combustion of those fossil fuel products by the citizens of Bucks County, and the County itself, produced greenhouse gas emissions,” Corr wrote. “If there were no emissions there would be no damages.”

In similar cases, however, judges have ruled the lawsuits belonged in state court, not federal court, Gerrard said. This means Bucks County’s only option might be to appeal the case on the state level.

“If the state courts don’t have jurisdiction, then nobody does,” Gerrard said.