No lawsuit was filed against Exxon while Harris was California attorney general from 2011 to 2017
The U.S. senator and former California attorney general made that claim during the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates’ Climate Crisis Town Hall.While she was pitching herself as a tough former California prosecutor who would lead on the climate crisis and make polluters pay, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris asserted Wednesday that she had sued the world's biggest private-sector oil company.
As California attorney general, Harris in 2016 joined an alliance of top state law enforcers who vowed to investigate whether ExxonMobil or any fossil fuel company broke the law by misleading the public—and, in particular, shareholders—over the risks of climate change. The coalition was announced after InsideClimate News reported on the history of Exxon's emerging understanding of climate change science in the 1970s and its subsequent efforts to challenge the scientific consensus.
New York filed such a lawsuit last October. But did Harris ever sue Exxon?
The answer appears to be no. No lawsuit was filed against Exxon while Harris was California attorney general from 2011 to 2017, the state Office of the Attorney General confirmed Thursday.
Her campaign spokesman took to Twitter to portray the controversy as an unfair quibble over whether Harris "investigated" or "sued" Exxon. But Harris clearly was attempting to convey that she had a record of taking law enforcement action against Big Oil over climate change, and that such litigation would be an integral part of her climate plan.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05092019/fact-check-kamala-harris-sue-exxon-climate-change-town-hall
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