For arrogant Big Oil, it’s time to pay

When I was a small child, I learned several basic values. One of them is to tell the truth. Another is that “if you break it, you bought it.”

You know who didn’t seem to learn those basic values? Lawyers for big oil and gas.

This week, dozens of fossil fuel lawyers descended on our community, donning expensive suits and smug expressions. So, let me start at the beginning.

Soon, I will turn 60 years old. Yet, when I was just 1 year old, President Lyndon Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee submitted a report highlighting the possibility of human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, contributing to climate change. Fossil fuel companies then conducted their own research and knew that their products would undermine our health, safety, and the world we all live in. Deliberately, they spent huge sums of money to mislead the public, putting profits over people and our shared planet.

The biggest and most profitable companies — the fossil fuel companies and big polluters — knowingly pushed products that help cause extreme weather and climate change around the world, especially where we live in our beloved quaint historic capital of Maryland.

Hit extremely hard by fossil fuel-induced climate change it now floods here, on average, 50 times a year.

My own backyard now floods several times a month, and it’s getting closer and closer to our house itself. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, this is going to get much worse in the next 15 years.

Fortunately, our local community has great leaders, including our county executive, Steuart Pittman. Thus, both our city and county are suing big polluters for their lies and the damages they have caused. They are fighting so we are no longer sucker-punched by big oil and gas. After all, why should we have to pay in our tax dollars for all the ongoing floor barrier construction and other mitigation efforts at the Annapolis docks and around the Naval Academy?

Of course, the companies that have been putting profits over people for decades have been fighting back. Cases such as ours are starting to pop up in other communities, including in Baltimore. In our one case alone, however, big oil and gas has hired 57 lawyers. Working in tandem, they are trying to make the case either go away completely or slow down.

After years of fighting, the circuit court case was heard this past week in our hometown Anne Arundel County Courthouse.

I watched the epic battle unfold inside the chambers of the courthouse as four lawyers fighting on the side of good stood up to the American Petroleum Association and 26 oil and gas companies, including BP, Shell, Exxon, Mobile, Chevron, and many others. It was stunning.

For the first several hours, it was our four lawyers on the side of good against four of theirs. Then, many of the companies were each given eight minutes to present specific pleas. These hired guns then generally came in groups of four. They went back-to-back with well-practiced dodging and deflecting. They moved in circles, twisted, and turned as smoothly as an Olympic synchronized swimming team.

There were multiple breaks in the hearings. Each time, people filed out toward the bathrooms and water fountains. Right after an especially disgusting display by the American Petroleum Institute’s lawyers, the judge called for a break. The lawyers exited with a kind of swagger and smiles that should be reserved for deserving veterans who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, not lackeys for profiteers.

I couldn’t take their peacocking. I went up to a group and explained that I live here, my home and neighborhood keep flooding, and I don’t think it’s funny at all.

I told them that they all seem very smart, and that I hope they can find a career that doesn’t hurt and kill people.

Of course, I doubt any of them care. All over our state, we are paying the price of fossil-fuel-induced climate change. People have drowned in Ellicott City and Rockville from extreme rain. We have 100,000-plus acres of land at risk. Our food supply and health have been harmed. Our state legislature is currently reviewing the Responding to Emergency Needs from Extreme Weather or RENEW Act (HB1438/SB0958) that would also hold fossil fuel companies accountable. If it passes in the future, it will take money from big oil and gas and invest in disaster relief and preparedness for Maryland. I obviously hope it becomes law soon.

In the past, big tobacco was held accountable for iits lies and the deaths of so many. So, too, was big pharma for its wrongful practices that led to opioid deaths. It’s going to take great public interest lawyers, elected officials, and activists to make things right.

The fossil fuel industry broke it. Now we need to get them to pay.