Chevron sold its last gas stations in Rhode Island in 1985 and doesn’t refine or store gasoline there, the oil company told the judge hearing the state’s climate lawsuit against it, raising the question of why it’s in the case at all.
Rhode Island also claims Chevron sold a “substantial portion” of its “total fossil fuel products” in the state. But by Chevron’s calculation, Rhode Island’s entire consumption of gasoline, from all companies, represents less than 1% of Chevron’s global gas sales.
“How do you get to a substantial portion, your honor?” Chevron attorney Gerald Petros asked Judge William Carnes at a Tuesday morning hearing. “Chevron has so few contacts in the state, it doesn’t belong in this case.”
The hearing was ostensibly over Chevron’s motion for sanctions against the state over claims it extracted and refined fossil fuels in Rhode Island, which it doesn’t do and calls evidence of a poorly researched lawsuit. But the real battle is over jurisdiction – whether the state has provided enough evidence to show Chevron targeted Rhode Island consumers with misleading statements that kept them uninformed about the risks of global warming.
“There’s no question Chevron extracts fossil fuels,” Petros said. “But not here.”
Matt Edling, a private lawyer who represents the state Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office on a contingency-fee basis, said “it takes some real chutzpah” for Chevron to complain about the wording of the climate suit more than six years after it was filed. He said Chevron’s own filings with the state say it engages in drilling, refining, transporting and selling fossil fuels, evidence enough to survive the company’s sanctions motion.
“Chevron, your honor, is quite literally wasting your time,” Edling said.