The Democratic nominee for attorney general in Pennsylvania has declined to support climate litigation against the oil and gas industry, calling a lawsuit brought by Bucks County “not a direction” he plans to follow.
Eugene DePasquale told the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business & Industry in an interview released Monday that he supports climate action but that “simply punishing companies is not going to get us there.”
Bucks County outside Philadelphia in March became the first Pennsylvania locale to sue the fossil fuel industry to pay up for the effects of climate change, joining a sprawling legal fight launched by more than two dozen local governments across the nation that charge that oil executives misled the public for decades about the dangers of burning fossil fuels.
The county’s move came after the Center for Climate Integrity, which encourages local governments to sue the industry, released a report that estimated that municipal governments in the Keystone State will need to spend nearly $1 billion a year to protect residents from extreme heat, rising seas, and heavy rain and snow.
