Maine is the most recent state to sue fossil fuel companies for deception, negligence and more. New Hampshire is the one New England holdout that has not joined its neighbors in taking a stand against fossil fuel companies’ role in causing climate change.
Maine Attorney General, Aaron Frey, filed suit in state court against Exxon, Shell, Chevron, BP, Sunoco, and the American Petroleum Institute for deceiving Maine residents about the role of their fossil fuel products in causing climate change. Like the other four New England states that filed lawsuits, Maine seeks to hold the companies accountable for concealing their knowledge about the devastating consequences of the increasing use of fossil fuels on Maine’s people, economy, and environment.
“For over half a century, these companies chose to fuel profits instead of following their science to prevent what are now likely irreversible, catastrophic climate effects,” said Attorney General Frey. “In so doing, they burdened the State and our citizens with the consequences of their greed and deception.”
Maine’s complaint details past, current and future injuries caused by conduct by the fossil fuel companies and alleges seven violations of Maine law including failure to warn, negligence, nuisance, trespass, and violations under the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act. Maine is asking that the court require the defendants to cease their deception and to pay for both past and future climate harms caused by the defendants, a figure that will rise each day.
The other New England states that filed lawsuits include Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
In Vermont, a case was filed in 2021 against major oil and gas companies including ExxonMobil, Shell, Sunoco, CITGO, and Energy Transfer to hold them accountable for “numerous deceptive acts and unfair practices in connection with their marketing, distribution, and sale of gasoline and other fossil fuel products to consumers within the State.”
The Connecticut case against ExxonMobil was filed in 2020 to hold the corporation accountable for an “ongoing, systematic campaign of lies and deception to hide from the public what ExxonMobil has known for decades—that burning fossil fuels undeniably contributes to climate change” in violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts filed a case against ExxonMobil in 2019 to hold the company accountable for “systematically and intentionally misleading consumers and investors about its role in causing climate change, in violation of Massachusetts state law.”
The diminutive state of Rhode Island took on 20 oil and gas companies in 2018 “to hold them accountable and make them pay for climate damages they knew their products would cause, including increased flooding and sea level rise along the state’s 400 mile shoreline.”
No lawsuit in NH
In the lone New England state that has not filed a lawsuit against fossil fuel companies, the legislature last year failed to move on a bill that would establish “a commission to determine the monetary costs of climate damage to the state of New Hampshire and the best means of recouping such costs”. pv magazine USA reached out to Tony Caplan, the prime sponsor of the bill, to find out if the bill will be re-introduced this year, but had not received comment by press time.
The quasi good news in New Hampshire is that utility regulators left the state’s net metering program in place with an expiration date of 2040.
In 2017 NH’s NEM was cut to around 14.7 cents per kWh for small (<100 kW) systems and 10 cents per kWh for large projects compared to between 13 and 25 cents per kWh in Maine, and about 16 cents per kWh in Vermont. While the net metering rate is low in NH, the cost of electricity is high. New Hampshire currently has the 8th highest electricity rate in the country, averaging 23.1 cents per kWh.
Leaving NEM in place, as low as it is for large installations, is a temporary benefit to solar energy users in the state; however, it is not the carrot that solar proponents believe is needed to encourage residents to invest in solar. With installations expected to last 30 or more years, the uncertainty of net metering credits can make financing solar more difficult.
When developers go to the bank to seek financing the bank’s going to say “why would we give you a loan when halfway through the life of the equipment, you don’t know how to monetize it,” Sam Evans Brown, executive director of Clean Energy NH, told pv magazine USA. He added that by keeping net metering in place the commission got it half right, but what would serve ratepayers best would be to turn it into a rolling 20-year net metering tariff.
