{"id":93853,"date":"2025-01-30T05:00:45","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T10:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=93853"},"modified":"2025-01-29T20:10:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T01:10:57","slug":"proposed-california-legislation-to-allow-big-oil-to-be-sued-for-climate-change-damage-regardless-of-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/01\/30\/proposed-california-legislation-to-allow-big-oil-to-be-sued-for-climate-change-damage-regardless-of-cause\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed California legislation to allow “Big Oil” to be sued for “climate change damage … regardless of cause”"},"content":{"rendered":"

California is a lovely place. I’ve only ever been there once, back in January 1991 but it was a wonderful (business) trip. California’s political “leaders” on the other hand are clearly in need of immediate re-institutionalization<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First, the madness of the California state legislature is richly displayed in Senator Scott Wiener’s remarkable new bill<\/a> that would allow people to sue the oil industry because climate change damaged their property, via “natural catastrophe, including a hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought, or, regardless of cause, a fire, flood, or explosion”.<\/p>\n

I hope you caught that “regardless of cause” thing, there at the end. If this bill passes \u2014 it won’t, being mostly a theatrical performance, but let’s pretend \u2014 Californians will supposedly be able to sue Chevron or ExxonMobil (and so on) because a flood or fire damages their property, which implicates fossil fuel-induced climate change, regardless of the cause of the flood or fire<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I threw matches on your couch<\/li>\n
  2. Climate change<\/li>\n
  3. Big Oil burned your couch<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    On the hook: anyone who sold “fossil fuels” in California “since the year 1965”, although a lawsuit has to be brought within three years of the discovery of the damage caused by the fossil fuel’s effect on the climate.<\/p>\n

    Favorite part, and look at item #2 (click to enlarge):<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    I’m not a lawyer, but I have doubts about declaring in a law that you can’t question the constitutionality of the law. We had similar legal doctrines on the playground in elementary school, despite which some members of the first-grade community controversially persisted in utilizing the disallowed tag-back.<\/p>\n

    Wiener’s press release on the bill<\/a> is … very special. California government knows why the recent fires were so harmful, and none of it involves California government. Sample quote from, please help me, the state senator who represents my district:<\/p>\n