On a windy pier in 2019, then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris told Mother Jones that the U.S. Department of Justice should “absolutely” investigate the fossil fuel industry for “creating incredible harm in our communities.”
“It’s about having the conviction to take these guys into court and to hold them accountable and not backing down,” the California Senator told reporter Rebecca Leber, who is now senior investigative researcher at the Center for Climate Integrity, of which ExxonKnews is a project.
Now that President Joe Biden has ended his reelection bid and endorsed his VP to be the Democratic nominee, Harris’s comments on climate accountability are taking on new significance. As we await more details in this unprecedented moment, let’s take a look at Harris’s previous pledges and actions to hold fossil fuel companies accountable.
As a candidate
During the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, Harris—like many Democratic candidates—stressed the importance of addressing climate change swiftly, saying in 2019 that the “issue of the climate crisis relates to every aspect” of the president’s work. In the same Mother Jones interview, Harris specifically said that fossil fuel companies that lied to the public about the dangers of their products should be held accountable for those actions.
“Everyone that was part of misinforming the public, misleading the public, and false advertising should be held accountable,” Harris said. “Let’s get them not only in the pocketbook, but make sure there are severe and serious penalties for their behaviors.”
Notably, Biden also pledged support during his 2020 presidential campaign for suing fossil fuel companies if they have lied to the public (there is growing evidence that they have), stating, “We should go after [fossil fuel companies], just like we did the drug companies, just like we did with the tobacco companies.” While his administration has failed to launch an investigation or sue the fossil fuel industry, the Biden administration submitted a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of communities suing Big Oil, urging the justices to reject the fossil fuel industry’s request to review lower court rulings that propelled those lawsuits closer to trial.
As a prosecutor
In her time as California Attorney General from 2011 to 2017, Harris filed multiple lawsuits against oil and gas companies over pollution, one of which resulted in a 2016 settlement with a BP subsidy that her office charged with failing to stop underground storage tanks from leaking gasoline at nearly 800 sites across the state. Harris’s office also sued Southern California Gas Co. over a methane leak and obtained multimillion-dollar settlements with Phillips 66, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron.
During a 2019 town hall on climate change, Harris erroneously claimed that her office had also sued ExxonMobil, but in reality it had launched an investigation into Exxon’s efforts to mislead the public about climate change. That investigation made no public progress during Harris’s tenure, but current California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Exxon and several of its peers in 2023, citing the companies’ efforts to downplay the harm of fossil fuels and deceive the public about the reality of climate change.
Trump’s pledges
If Harris formally secures the Democratic nomination, she’ll face a Republican opponent with starkly different views on climate and fossil fuel companies.
During Donald Trump’s administration, the Justice Department supported oil and gas companies in their efforts to kill climate lawsuits against them, going as far as to have DOJ attorneys argue alongside Big Oil’s lawyers in front of the Supreme Court. If reelected, Trump has pledged to continue his efforts to block climate accountability lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, calling them “frivolous litigation from environmental extremists.”
Earlier this year, Trump made headlines after reportedly telling oil executives that he would roll back the Biden administration’s environmental policies if they gave $1 billion to his campaign.
The next administration’s views on the issue, and who the next president appoints to key roles, could be even more important as the Department of Justice faces two major tests: Members of Congress have referred findings of a yearlong investigation into Big Oil to the DOJ for further action, and the U.S. Supreme Court is asking the DOJ to state its views on yet another request from Big Oil to take up a lower court ruling in a climate accountability lawsuit.
This piece was originally published on ExxonKnews, a project with the Center for Climate Integrity.