In the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, Maryland
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E-FILED; Anne Arundel Circuit Court Docket: 4/26/2021 4:33 PM; Submission: 4/26/2021 4:33 PM IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND Anne Arundel County, Maryland Civil Action No.: C-02-CV-21-000565 2660 Riva Road 4th Floor Annapolis, MD 21401, Complaint Plaintiff, vs. BP P.L.C. 1 St James’s Square London, SW1Y 4PD BP AMERICA, INC. 501 Westlake Park Blvd. Houston, TX 77079 BP PRODUCTS NORTH AMERICA INC. 7 St. Paul Street, Suite 820 Baltimore, MD 21202 CROWN CENTRAL LLC 100 Light Street, Suite 2500 Baltimore, MD 21202 CROWN CENTRAL NEW HOLDINGS LLC 100 Light Street, Suite 2500 Baltimore, MD 21202 ROSEMORE, INC. 100 Light Street, Suite 2500 Baltimore, MD 21202 CHEVRON CORP. 6001 Bollinger Canyon Road San Ramon, CA 94583 CHEVRON U.S.A. INC. 6001 Bollinger Canyon Road San Ramon, CA 94583 EXXON MOBIL CORP. 1251 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 EXXONMOBIL OIL CORPORATION 5959 Las Colinas Boulevard Irving, TX 75039 ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC Carel van Bylandtlaan 16, 2596 HR The Hague, The Netherlands SHELL OIL COMPANY P.O. Box 2463 Houston, TX 77252 CITGO PETROLEUM CORP. 1293 Eldridge Parkway Houston, TX 77077 CONOCOPHILLIPS 600 North Dairy Ashford Houston, TX 77079 CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY 600 North Dairy Ashford Houston, TX 77079 PHILLIPS 66 2331 CityWest Blvd Houston, TX 77042 PHILLIPS 66 COMPANY 2331 CityWest Blvd Houston, TX 77042 MARATHON OIL COMPANY 5555 San Felipe Street Houston, TX 77056-2723 MARATHON OIL CORPORATION 5555 San Felipe Street Houston, TX 77056-2723 MARATHON PETROLEUM CORPORATION 539 South Main Street Findlay, OH 45840 SPEEDWAY LLC 500 Speedway Dr Enon, OH 45323-1056 HESS CORP. 1185 Avenue of the Americas 40th Floor New York, NY 10036 CNX RESOURCES CORPORATION 1000 Consol Energy Drive Canonsburg, PA 15317 CONSOL ENERGY INC. 1000 Consol Energy Drive Canonsburg, PA 15317 CONSOL MARINE TERMINALS LLC 1000 Consol Energy Drive Canonsburg, PA 15317 AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE 1220 L Street, Suite 900 Washington, D.C. 20005 Defendants. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................ 1 II. PARTIES .............................................................................................................................. 8 A. Plaintiff ............................................................................................................................ 8 B. Defendants ..................................................................................................................... 11 C. Relevant Non-Parties: Defendants’ Agents and Front Groups ...................................... 40 III. AGENCY ............................................................................................................................ 43 IV. JURISDICTION AND VENUE ........................................................................................ 43 V. FACTUAL BACKGROUND ............................................................................................ 46 A. Defendants Are Responsible for Causing and Accelerating Climate Change. .............. 46 B. Defendants Went to Great Lengths to Understand, and Either Knew or Should Have Known About, the Dangers Associated with Their Fossil Fuel Products. ........................... 51 C. Defendants Did Not Disclose Known Harms Associated with the Extraction, Promotion, and Consumption of Their Fossil Fuel Products, and Instead Affirmatively Acted to Obscure Those Harms and Engaged in a Campaign to Deceptively Protect and Expand the Use of Their Fossil Fuel Products..................................................................... 75 D. In Contrast to Their Public Statements, Defendants’ Internal Actions Demonstrate Their Awareness of and Intent to Profit from the Unabated Use of Fossil Fuel Products. ........... 96 E. Defendants’ Actions Have Exacerbated the Costs of Adapting to and Mitigating the Adverse Impacts of the Climate Crisis. ............................................................................... 98 F. Defendants Continue to Mislead About the Impact of Their Fossil Fuel Products on Climate Change Through Greenwashing Campaigns and Other Misleading Advertisements in Anne Arundel County and Elsewhere. .......................................................................... 108 i. Exxon’s Misleading and Deceptive Greenwashing Campaigns ............................ 112 ii. Shell’s Misleading and Deceptive Greenwashing Campaigns .............................. 116 iii. BP’s Misleading and Deceptive Greenwashing Campaigns .................................. 118 iv. Chevron’s Misleading and Deceptive Greenwashing Campaigns ......................... 122 v. Marathon’s Misleading and Deceptive Greenwashing Campaigns ....................... 126 vi. ConocoPhillips’s Misleading and Deceptive Greenwashing Campaigns .............. 126 vii. API’s Misleading and Deceptive Greenwashing Campaigns ................................ 127 ii G. Defendants Also Made Misleading Claims About Specific “Green” or “Greener” Fossil Fuel Products. .................................................................................................................... 131 H. Defendants Intended for Consumers to Rely on their Concealments and Omissions Regarding the Dangers of Their Fossil Fuel Products. ...................................................... 134 I. Defendants’ Deceit Only Recently Became Discoverable, and Their Misconduct Is Ongoing.............................................................................................................................. 136 J. The County Has Suffered, Is Suffering, and Will Suffer Injuries from Defendants’ Wrongful Conduct. ............................................................................................................ 138 VI. CAUSES OF ACTION .................................................................................................... 150 FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION ............................................................................................ 150 SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION ....................................................................................... 155 THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION ........................................................................................... 158 FOURTH CAUSE OF ACTION ....................................................................................... 161 FIFTH CAUSE OF ACTION ............................................................................................ 163 SIXTH CAUSE OF ACTION ........................................................................................... 165 VII. PRAYER FOR RELIEF.................................................................................................. 169 iii COMPLAINT Jury Trial Requested I. INTRODUCTION 1. Defendants, major corporate members of the fossil fuel industry, have known for nearly half a century that unrestricted production and use of fossil fuel products create greenhouse gas pollution that warms the planet and changes our climate. Climate change will have and has already had devastating economic and public health impacts throughout Anne Arundel County, Maryland,1 and will disproportionately impact people of color, people living in poverty, and other vulnerable communities. Defendants have known for decades that climate change impacts could be catastrophic, and that only a narrow window existed to take action before the consequences would be irreversible. They have nevertheless engaged in a coordinated, multi-front effort to conceal and deny their own knowledge of those threats, to discredit the growing body of publicly available scientific evidence, and to persistently create doubt in the minds of customers, consumers, regulators, the media, journalists, teachers, and the public about the reality and consequences of the impacts of their fossil fuel products. This campaign was intended to, and did, target and influence the public and consumers, including in Anne Arundel County. 2. At the same time, Defendants have promoted and profited from a massive increase in the extraction, production, and consumption of oil, coal, and natural gas, which has in turn caused an enormous, foreseeable, and avoidable increase in global greenhouse gas pollution and a 1 In this Complaint, the terms “the County,” and “Plaintiff” refer to Anne Arundel County, Maryland, unless otherwise stated. The phrase “Anne Arundel County” refers to the area falling within Plaintiff’s geographic boundaries, excluding federal land, unless otherwise stated. 1 2 concomitant increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (“CO2”) and methane, in the Earth’s atmosphere. Those disruptions of the Earth’s otherwise balanced carbon cycle have substantially contributed to a wide range of dire climate-related effects, including, but not limited to, global atmospheric and ocean warming, ocean acidification, melting polar ice caps and glaciers, more extreme and volatile weather, drought, and sea level rise. 3. Plaintiff, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, along with the County’s residents, infrastructure, public and private lands, and natural and historic resources, suffer the consequences of Defendants’ campaign of deception. 4. Defendants are extractors, producers, refiners, manufacturers, distributors, promoters, marketers, and/or sellers of fossil fuel products, each of which contributed to deceiving the public and consumers, in and outside of Anne Arundel County, about the role of their products in causing