Environment Texas, Sierra Club triumph in 15-year-long battle over air pollution from Baytown, Texas, petrochemical complex means Exxon must pay record penalty
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court has denied ExxonMobil Corporation’s certiorari
“The headline here is: David slays Goliath in pollution case,” said Neil Carman, Clean Air director of the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter. “Our members in Baytown knew Exxon might fight this case all the way to the Supreme Court, but we matched Exxon’s persistence so the company could not escape responsibility for its years of illegal air pollution.”
The environmental groups’ suit, filed in 2010, cited repeated violations at the company’s Baytown, Texas, oil refinery and chemical plant complex. It resulted in a $14.25 million civil penalty against Exxon — the largest penalty ever imposed by a court in a citizen-initiated public interest lawsuit to enforce the Clean Air Act. It’s a huge win for plaintiffs Environment Texas and Sierra Club and their members who live near the complex.
“The Supreme Court’s action allows citizens to continue to use the Clean Air Act in court to fight illegal polluters, especially in highly polluted places like the Houston Ship Channel area,” said Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas. “Citizens need all the tools Congress provided so they can stand up to big corporations who are breaking environmental laws.”
The groups went to trial in federal district court in Houston in 2014 on behalf of neighbors harmed by Exxon’s 10 million pounds of illegal pollution, which included toxic, carcinogenic and ozone-forming chemicals. Exxon lost four prior appeals at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals prior to this Supreme Court rejection. The $14.25 million dollar penalty imposed by U.S. District Judge David Hittner — which Exxon will have to pay to the federal government — stands as the largest penalty ever in a Clean Air Act citizen suit, and is believed to be the largest penalty in any federal environmental citizen suit that went to trial. Judge Hittner found Exxon violated its Clean Air Act permits on 16,386 days – more than one violation a day for eight consecutive years.
“At trial, Exxon’s neighbors bravely testified to the harms they suffered from the company’s illegal pollution, painting an ugly picture of what it’s like to live in Exxon’s shadow,” said Josh Kratka, managing attorney at the National Environmental Law Center and one of the plaintiffs’ lead attorneys. “The Supreme Court saw through Exxon’s claim that its neighbors shouldn’t have the right to hold the company accountable for compliance with the Clean Air Act.”
Exxon pressed the Supreme Court to change the constitutional and statutory requirements governing private citizens’ “standing” to use the federal courts to enforce federal environmental laws — including the Constitution’s Article III “case or controversy” clause that governs the power of federal courts to hear disputes — in ways that would have made it more difficult for citizens harmed by illegal pollution to sue to stop it.
Exxon attempted to convince the Court to consider overturning its 25-year-old precedent in Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, which held that a civil penalty imposed on a violator can “redress” the injuries suffered by citizen plaintiffs by deterring future violations of environmental laws. Exxon also sought a more restrictive standard that would make it harder to prove that people’s injuries from poor air quality are “fairly traceable” to a defendant’s illegal pollution. The Court’s denial of certiorari puts an end to those efforts.
“Exxon’s belly-flop in front of the Supreme Court confirms that Constitutional standing for neighbors enforcing federal environmental laws is alive and well,” said David A. Nicholas, one of the groups’ lead attorneys. “Suffering citizens can continue to enforce federal environmental laws like the Clean Air Act when the government won’t.”
The groups are represented by the non-profit National Environmental Law Center; attorney David Nicholas of Newton, MA; and attorney Philip H. Hilder of Hilder & Associates in Houston. The plaintiffs were also represented in the Supreme Court by the University of Texas Law School Supreme Court Clinic.
