Bucks County has filed a lawsuit against oil companies BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Philips 66, Shell and API alleging that the county has suffered catastrophic effects of climate change caused by the fossil fuel industry. The lawsuit, which was filed Monday in the county’s Court of Common Pleas, seeks damages for the cost of measures adaptive to climate change and public works projects such as replacing or redesigning bridges, retrofitting county-owned buildings and developing stormwater management systems.
“In Bucks County we understand it is our responsibility to be good stewards of the environment, and with the public’s support, this administration has established the County as a regional leader on environmental issues,” said Commissioner Vice Chair Bob Harvie. “It is unconscionable that while we were working hard to reduce our impact on the climate crisis, some of the biggest companies in the world were deliberately undercutting those efforts through their deceptive business practices.”
“These companies have known since at least the 1950s that their ways of doing business were having calamitous effects on our planet, and rather than change what they were doing or raise the alarm, they lied to all of us,” Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo added. “The taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for these companies and their greed.”
A news release about the filing of the suit said “climate change and destabilization has exposed, and will continue to expose, Bucks County and its residents to weather events of growing severity, including storms, heat waves and flooding made worse by the rising tidal waters of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers.”
“Following the model established in suits Bucks County brought against PFAS manufacturers, social media giants and opioid companies, this complaint seeks to shift the financial burden of the climate crisis from the taxpayers of Bucks County to the companies responsible for creating the crisis,” it said.
The county is being represented by the New York law firm DiCello Levitt.
The news release also noted that Bucks County is the first county in Pennsylvania to file a lawsuit over the effects of climate change against “big oil.”
This local news story was reported with generative AI assistance.
