Puerto Rico Dismisses $1 Billion Climate Lawsuit Amid Fossil Fuel Group, Trump DOJ Attacks on Threats to Big Oil

Hey, dear reader. While I first broke this story yesterday on Twitter, The Guardian's excellent Dharna Noor beat me to the writeup because I was busy doing work for my other jobs. (If you're my editor reading this, I'm sorry!). If you like what I do, how I do it, and want me to help me break news on this newsletter, become a subscriber and share my articles as broadly as you can/want. Thanks!

Puerto Rico voluntarily dismissed its $1 billion 2024 climate lawsuit against the fossil fuel industry, according to a legal filing submitted Friday. The dismissal comes at the same time as pro-fossil fuel organizations and the Trump administration are attacking climate litigation around the United States.

The archipelago’s lawsuit, filed in July 2024, alleged oil and gas companies misled the public about the dangers their products posed to the climate. It was one of three climate lawsuits filed in Puerto Rico that came as part of a wave of climate litigation against Big Oil and Gas. 

While the Friday filing does not list a reason for the dismissal, it came just days after the right-wing pro-fossil fuel advocacy group American Energy Institute (AEI) sent a letter to Governor Jenniffer González Colón asking she direct the archipelago’s nominated-but-not-yet-confirmed Secretary of Justice Janet Parra Mercado to withdraw the complaint. AEI called the lawsuits “coordinated lawfare” in the letter and said they were part of a “racial ‘green’ agenda” in a tweet. 

One of President Donald Trump's campaign promises was to put an end to "the wave of frivolous litigation from environmental extremists" and it seems like the fossil fuel industry is putting its weight behind attempts to get government institutions across the U.S. to bend the knee and stop climate litigation.

The Puerto Rico Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Heavy Weather left a message asking why the lawsuit was dismissed and if it was related to the AEI letter. Meanwhile, the office of the Governor said: “we have no comment.”

“We serve under the direction and control, and at the pleasure, of our clients in all of our representations,” said John Lamson, spokesperson for Sher Edling, the law firm representing Puerto Rico, in an email. Andréu & Sagardía, the other law firm representing the archipelago, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Heavy Weather left a message.

Notably, the case was dismissed without prejudice, leaving the fossil fuel industry open to a similar lawsuit under the same allegations from the Puerto Rico government in the future.

Puerto Rico was among the ten high-income countries most affected by climate change in 2022. A study from the Puerto Rico Committee of Experts and Advisors on Climate Change estimates that 2°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels by 2050 could result in nearly 10,000 deaths and nearly $400 billion in damages. The world is currently on track for 3.1°C, according to the United Nations.

Climate-accountability litigation has been under heavy attack recently. At the beginning of April, Trump signed an executive order directing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to stop the “crippling” climate litigation being brought by several states, cities, and municipalities. The order also targets state and local laws looking to address anthropogenic climate change. 

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice filed lawsuits against Michigan and Hawai’i because of announced climate litigation against the fossil fuel industry for the harm they have caused to the climate. The lawsuits claim the Clean Air Act “‘displaces’ the ability of States to regulate greenhouse gas emissions beyond their borders. 

Officials from both states condemned the lawsuits against them. Anne Lopez, Hawai’i Attorney General, called them “a direct attack on Hawaiʻi’s rights as a sovereign state” and condemned the use of the U.S. Justice Department to fight “on behalf” of the fossil fuel industry. Michigan’s Attorney General, Dana Nessel, told Reuters she was “undeterred in [her] intention to file this lawsuit the President and his Big Oil donors so fear.” While Michigan's lawsuit was already filed at the time, Hawai'i filed theirs on Friday.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice sued New York and Vermont over their climate superfund laws, which require fossil fuel companies to pay fees to address climate change. The lawsuits called these superfund laws a “transparent monetary-extraction scheme.”

So far, the states targeted by the Trump administration for their climate lawsuits and superfund laws have all been Democratic states. Although Puerto Rico votes do not count in federal elections, the overwhelming majority of its residents voted blue in the 2024 election. However, González Colón is a Republican, an ardent Trump supporter, and has focused a lot of energy on dismantling renewable energy laws and public money behind expanding Puerto Rico's fossil fuel architecture.

The letter from AEI was not the only recent pressure the Puerto Rico government received to drop the lawsuit. Dan Eberhart, the CEO of an oilfield services company, penned an op-ed in Forbes taking aim at González Colón for continuing the Puerto Rico lawsuit, claiming it “undermined” Puerto Rico’s energy crisis. Notably, it does not mention the municipalities' lawsuits. It also does not take into account that Puerto Rico is currently pumping hundreds of millions into expanding its fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure (particularly methane gas) at the cost of the safety of its citizens or that fossil fuels supercharged the very storms that wrecked the archipelago’s energy grid in the first place.

While the Puerto Rico lawsuit would not have "crippled" the fossil fuel industry, as detractors claim, it is part of a wider backlash against these companies for the harm they have caused the planet. It is likely this dismissal and others like it will cause a chilling effect in similar cases or ones that are only in the planning stage.

The other two climate lawsuits in Puerto Rico, presented by 38 municipalities, allege the fossil fuel industry conspired in a decades-long campaign to deceive people about the risks of climate change to continue profiting from their products, which are the primary drivers of the climate crisis. Two of the municipalities in those lawsuits, Orocovis and Naranjito, are currently under a state of emergency after torrential rains caused catastrophic flooding.

In February, the judge in the case representing 37 municipalities filed a report and recommendation stating the fossil fuel industry should face the racketeering and antitrust claims filed against them. This move was celebrated by many, who see it as a huge step to holding these companies accountable for the climate crisis.

The AEI letter called for González Colón to file amicus briefs in both cases in favor of dismissing them with prejudice and to discourage state contracts with the law firms representing the municipalities in these lawsuits. So far, no amicus briefs have been filed and those lawsuits have continued as normal.

AEI has previously attacked efforts to hold seminars for lawyers and judges about the climate crisis, according to The Guardian. It has also been linked to Leonard Leo, who is the architect behind the right-wing take over of the Supreme Court and the judiciary.

You can find the dismissal on Courtlistener and below: