The energy sector has long been a lightning rod for policy battles, but few moments crystallize the tension between environmental activism and economic reality quite like David Bookbinder’s recent admission. A veteran litigator who’s spent years spearheading lawsuits against major oil companies on behalf of Colorado municipalities — including Boulder — Bookbinder let the cat out of the bag during a recent Federalist Society panel.
In an all-too-rare acknowledgement of the lawfare campaign’s real goal, Bookbinder admitted that he views the lawsuits mainly as a proxy for a carbon tax. In other words, the winning or losing of any of the cases is irrelevant; in Bookbinder’s view, the process becomes the punishment as companies and ultimately consumers pay the price for using oil and gas and the industry’s refined products.
“Tort liability is an indirect carbon tax,” Bookbinder stated plainly. “You sue an oil company, an oil company is liable. The oil company then passes that liability on to the people who are buying its products … The people who buy those products are now going to be paying for the cost imposed by those products. … [This is] somewhat of a convoluted way to achieve the goals of a carbon tax.”
The cynicism is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
On one hand, the fact that winning is irrelevant to the plaintiff firms who bring the cases has become obvious over the last two years as case after case has been dismissed by judges in at least ten separate jurisdictions. The fact that almost every case has been dismissed on the same legal grounds only serves to illustrate that reality.
Bookbinder’s frank admission lands with particular force at a pivotal juncture. In late September, the Department of Justice, along with 26 state attorneys general and more than 100 members of Congress, urged the Supreme Court to grant certiorari in one of the few remaining active cases in this lawfare effort, in Boulder, Colorado.
Their briefs contend that allowing these suits to proceed unchecked would “upend the constitutional balance” between federal and state authority, potentially “bankrupt[ing] the U.S. energy sector” by empowering local courts to override national energy policy.
For the companies named in the suits, these cases represent not just a tiresome form of legal Kabuki Theater, but a financial and time sink that cuts profits and inhibits capital investments in more productive enterprises. You know, like producing oil and gas to meet America’s ravenous energy needs in an age of explosive artificial intelligence growth.
“I’d prefer an actual carbon tax, but if we can’t get one of those, and I don’t think anyone on this panel would [dis]agree Congress is likely to take on climate change anytime soon—so this is a rather convoluted way to achieve the goals of a carbon tax,” Bookbinder elaborated in his panel discussion.
John Yoo, the eminent UC Berkeley law professor and former Bush-era official, didn’t hold back in his analysis for National Review. He described the lawfare campaign as a “backdoor” assault on the energy industry, circumventing the federal government’s established role in environmental regulation.
“There are a variety of cities and states that don’t agree with the federal government, and they would like to see the energy companies taxed,” Yoo explained. “Some of them probably like to see them go out of business. Since they can’t persuade through the normal political process of elections and legislation like the rest of the country, they’re using this back door,” he added.
What we see in action here is the fact that, although the climate alarm industry that is largely funded by an array of dark money NGOs and billionaire foundations finds itself on the defensive amid the aggressive policy actions of the Trump 47 administration, it is far from dead. Like the Democrat party in which they play an integral role, the alarmists are fighting the battle in their last bastion of power: The courts.
As long as there are city and county officials willing to play the role of plaintiffs in this long running Kabuki dance, and a Supreme Court unwilling to intercede, no one should doubt that this stealth carbon tax lawfare effort will keep marching right along.
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