Emily Pontecorvo

Yeah.

So over the last about 10 years, dozens of cities and states have filed lawsuits against oil companies for their role in climate change.

And in all of these cases, they're basically asking for money for help to adapt to future climate damages and often also to pay for past and present climate damages from floods, from wildfires.

So we saw New York City sue for damages from Hurricane Sandy, for example.

And in a lot of these cases, they're arguing that

the companies either deceived the public or created a public nuisance.

Even though they knew about the harms the fossil fuels would cause, they did it anyway and should now pay for the damages.

And what makes this Michigan lawsuit different?

This Michigan case is arguing that the companies violated antitrust law.

So they're alleging that basically a bunch of fossil fuel companies all got together and coordinated a strategy to

to prevent the country from transitioning away from fossil fuels.

And they allege that they did things like they bought up patents and then restricted their use, basically all in a ploy to protect their market share.

I think there's a few reasons.

In general, there's been this kind of constant challenge for them where

They're filed in state court and then fossil fuel companies will argue that these need to be fought out in federal court.

And that kind of delay is actually getting into the substance of the case.

Another part of that argument, it has to do with the Federal Clean Air Act.

which basically preempts states from enacting their own regulations of fossil fuels or really of greenhouse gas emissions.

That's one reason I think Michigan is trying this new route is to say, you know, we're not talking about emissions.

We're not talking about climate damages.