Bucks County Court of Common Pleas Judge Stephen Corr has dismissed Bucks County government’s lawsuit against major fossil fuel companies.
The ruling was issued late Friday and brings a halt to the county’s efforts to hold a number of major companies financially responsible for climate change-related damages in the county.
Bucks County filed the lawsuit in March 2024 and alleged that organizations, including Shell, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and the American Petroleum Institute, were aware of the climate impacts of fuel products but engaged in a decades-long campaign to mislead the public.
In the lawsuit, the county sought damages to cover costs associated with climate change, including repairs to infrastructure damaged by increasingly severe storms and flooding. The county has seen a number of serious flooding incidents in recent years, including the deaths of seven people in Upper Makefield Township.
At an hours-long hearing in March, attorneys for the fossil fuel companies argued that the county lacked standing to bring such claims in county court.
“Is it bigger than this little old judge in Bucks County?” Corr joked during the hearing.
In his decision, Corr sided with the fossil fuel companies’ arguments for dismissal.
The judge stated that “Pennsylvania cannot apply its own laws to claims dealing with air in its ambient or interstate aspects.” He concluded that the court lacked the necessary jurisdiction to hear the case.
The judge’s ruling aligns with the companies’ argument that there have been juridical challenges in similar cases across the country.
Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., counsel for Chevron Corporation, issued a statement Saturday morning after reviewing the decision.
“As Judge Corr declared, his decision joins the ‘growing chorus of state and federal courts across the United States, singing from the same hymnal,’ concluding the ‘our federal structure does not allow Pennsylvania law, or any State’s law, to address’ climate change lawsuits. The court also got it right when it expressed ‘concern about the manner in which the Commissioners went about hiring counsel and filing this lawsuit,’ and found that ‘the conduct of the Commissioners violated the spirit of’ Pennsylvania’s open government act,” Boutrous said.
Beyond the jurisdictional issue, Corr also expressed “concern about the manner in which the commissioners went about hiring counsel and filing this lawsuit,” finding that their conduct “violated the spirit of Pennsylvania’s open government act,” known as the Sunshine Act.
In his written decision, Corr called the hiring of the law firm a “cryptic summary” of the agenda and noted the lack of public discussion or commissioner comment on it prior to the filing.
The judge stated that the lawsuit’s focus was primarily on “emissions,” a matter he deemed to be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government through the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He noted the frequent use of the word “emissions” in the complaint compared to the terms “deceptive” or “deception.”
Corr’s decision noted that the claims raised by Bucks County were “so intertwined with emissions” that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. He emphasized that “our federal structure does not allow Pennsylvania’s law, or any state’s law, to address the claims raised in Bucks County’s complaint.”
A county spokesperson declined comment Saturday morning on the decision.
Dan Flynn, an attorney for the county, said during the March hearing that the case was similar to those against big tobacco.
“It’s not about solving climate change,” Flynn said. “It’s about Bucks County surviving it.”
The Bucks County Commissioners voted in January 2024 to hire the DiCello Levitt law firm on a contingency basis to pursue potential environmental claims. The vote, part of a consent agenda, was approved by all three commissioners, two Democrats and one Republican.
Republican Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo initially supported the lawsuit.
DiGirolamo spoke in support at the 2024 press conference announcing the lawsuit. However, he later stated he “would like to withdraw my support for the lawsuit.”
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