Victory for Clean Air!

Carbon County residents have reason to celebrate - after 15 years, and many wins at the district and circuit level, the US Supreme Court rejected ExxonMobil's appeal and the company will finally be held accountable for thousands of air pollution violations at its Baytown, Texas, facility. The Supreme Court upheld a $14.25 million penalty against ExxonMobil for violations. This decision effectively concludes a 15-year legal battle initiated by environmental groups, who argued that Exxon's Baytown complex repeatedly exceeded permitted pollution levels. The court's denial of the appeal means the penalty stands, and the precedent allowing citizen groups to sue over pollution violations, even if penalties are paid to the government, remains in place.

Background: in 2010, Environment Texas and the Sierra Club, on behalf of Baytown residents, filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for illegally emitting 10 million pounds of pollution, including cancer-causing chemicals at the company’s Baytown, Texas, oil refinery and chemical plant complex - the largest manufacturing facility in the nation.

ln 2014, the case went to the federal district court in Houston. Judge David Hittner found Exxon violated its Clean Air Act permits on 16,386 days – more than one violation a day for eight consecutive years, and ordered them to pay a $14.25 million civil penalty -- the largest penalty in any federal environmental citizen suit that went to trial. Exxon lost four prior appeals at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals before appealing to this Supreme Court.

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.

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. Citizens need all the tools Congress provided so they can stand up to big corporations who are breaking environmental laws.

Today’s victory proves that people, when organized and determined, can take on the biggest polluters in the world—and win.