California Takes on ExxonMobil’s ‘Campaign of Deception’ in New Lawsuit

California Attorney General Rob Bonta kicked off Climate Week in New York City by announcing his office is suing oil and gas giant ExxonMobil.
The state of California is accusing ExxonMobil of misleading the public on the realities of recycling plastics through “deceptive public messaging” and accuses the company of being responsible for the plastic waste and pollution crisis, which Bonta calls “one of the most devastating global environmental crises of our time,” according to the complaint filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court.
At a Climate Week event in New York City Monday, Bonta said California is suing ExxonMobil for promoting the “myth that recycling plastic is a sustainable solution” to the issue of plastic waste.
“The campaign of deception that ExxonMobil engaged in is nefarious, it was deliberate [and] it was intentional” he said.
Bonta said his office has internal documents that shows discussions within different plastics industry associations, including ExxonMobil, that push the idea of recycling while simultaneously acknowledging that recycling was not technically or economically viable as a real solution.
“It’s time to hold [ExxonMobil] accountable,” he said. “It’s time for them to have a reckoning.”
This lawsuit comes after a two-year investigation into the role of fossil fuel and petrochemical industries in causing what Bonta’s office calls “the global plastics waste and pollution crisis.”
ExxonMobil is one of the largest producers of plastic polymers used to manufacture single-use plastics. Single-use plastics, like plastic bags, utensils and packaging made to be used once and then be thrown away, make up most of the plastic waste on the planet. Because plastic does not biodegrade, it breaks down into smaller pieces, or microplastics, that have been found in drinking water, food and even inside human bodies.
Last year, Bonta’s office filed a lawsuit against Big Oil companies – including ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP – for allegedly engaging in “a decades-long campaign of deception” and creating “statewide climate change-related harms in California.”
In a press release Sunday, Bonta said ExxonMobil knew that the plastic recycling solution it’s been promoting to the public wasn’t possible and lied to “further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health.”
Bonta claims ExxonMobil promoted false claims that all plastics are recyclable when, in reality, most plastic products cannot. He specifically calls out ExxonMobil’s promotion of its “advanced recycling” technology as a fake solution, claiming it to be a “public stunt meant to encourage the public to keep purchasing single-use plastics.”
This deception, Bonta said, has misled consumers and the public about the “serious adverse consequences” of increased plastic production.
In the complaint, Bonta notes how single-use plastics “choke waterways, poison oceans, harms endangered and threatened wildlife, expands landfills and pollute drinking water,” all while pushing the costs onto Californians and harming the state’s most vulnerable communities.
“For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” Bonta said in a press release. “ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health.”
The attorney general said this lawsuit asks the court to hold the company fully responsible for its role in “actively creating and exacerbating” the plastics pollution crisis.
During a press conference later Monday afternoon, Bonta said his office is not seeking “traditional” damages in this case. Instead, he said the complaint is asking for a robust variety of remedies.
This includes an abatement fund, which he will demand Exxon fund, re-education programs to tell people the truth about plastics recycling, research and development into ways to successfully recycle plastics and cleaning up plastic pollution that poses a risk to the environment and the public. Bonta also wants to see a return of the profits Exxon enjoyed “because of the lies,” as well as other civil penalties under existing laws.
Bonta was joined by leaders from environmental NGOs who have filed their own separate lawsuit against ExxonMobil during the afternoon call.
Surfrider Foundation, the Sierra Club, Heal the Bay, and San Francisco Baykeeper, represented by Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, filed a lawsuit against Exxon alleging violations of California nuisance law, California unfair competition law and alleges that Exxon concealed the harms caused by single-use plastics.
Attorney General Bonta said that while these cases are related, his lawsuit includes harms to natural resources, water pollution claims, false advertising and greenwashing claims and information from subpoenas his officer obtained regarding the “hidden truth about technical limitations” of Exxon’s recycling programs.
He said his office will work in collaboration and in partnership with these NGOs to hold Exxon accountable and propose appropriate remedies.
“More is more and more is better,” Bonta said. “And this today is an example of California doing what California has often done in the climate action space; moving with urgency and action, pioneering, trailblazing and collaborating.”
Bonta also said that while these cases are “the first of their kind” he hopes they won’t be the last. He encouraged other states and organizations who have been harmed by ExxonMobil to bring their own lawsuits against the company.
Updated Sept. 23, 2024, 3:20 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include comments from Attorney General Bonta and information about an additional lawsuit.