WEBVTT - Could You Really Charge Oil Companies with Murder? Plus: Supreme Court Climate Update 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.520 Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westerbeld. Today we are 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:31.560 interrupting our False Solutions series to bring you an episode 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:36.040 of our sister podcast, Damages, which is focused on climate litigation. 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:38.920 That's because I don't know if you've heard, but there's 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.920 some big stuff that's been happening at the Supreme Court 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:46.199 the last few weeks. A lot of it impacts climate 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.479 and I wanted to talk to someone who might make 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.600 us all feel a little bit better about there still 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:58.360 being some legal options for a climate accountability. That person 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:02.959 is Aaron Regenberg, your Climate policy Council for Public Citizen. 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.480 Public Citizen has recently been talking about the idea of 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:12.000 filing criminal charges against oil companies related to climate change. 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:23.720 One of those charges is homicide. That's right, homicide. I 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.160 asked Regenberg to walk me through they're thinking on that 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:31.679 charge and other criminal charges, how using criminal law might 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.920 help with the giant brick wall facing us at the 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.520 Supreme Court, and what some of the most recent Supreme 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.360 Court rulings mean for climate accountability. That conversation is coming 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:54.040 up after this quick break. 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.600 So I want to talk about the homicide stuff and 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.480 just have you tell me when you started looking at 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.519 the viability of could this actually be a homicide charge 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.800 against these companies? And what started you off thinking in 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:13.360 that direction. 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.239 The work that Public Citizen Organization is doing on this 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.320 really comes from a place of just knowing that we're 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.919 in five alarm fire mode, right, We're in, you know, 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:25.960 throw everything at the law mode. We need to be 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:31.720 exploring every possible solution, every possible tool that we have 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.400 for protecting folks from climate harms, for holding the actors 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:40.880 responsible for this crisis accountable. And there's this whole big 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.320 part of the law, a really important, powerful part the 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.760 criminal law that I think has not really been brought 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.920 to bear on this crisis. Again, we're getting to a 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:55.200 point where the harms are really clear, right, the injuries, 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.160 the deaths that we're seeing, it's getting harder and harder 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:04.760 to ignore or and when you have people dying and 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:11.680 you have particular individuals, particular corporate actors who have recklessly 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.280 acted in ways that have caused or contributed to those harms, 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.760 you know, we have a word for that, and homicide. 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:20.960 We're looking to be clear, actually at a number of 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:24.600 possible criminal offenses that we think these companies, Big oil 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:28.360 could potentially be be charged with, though homicide is the 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.920 most high profile and just I think important and severe 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:36.440 given the stakes, and I think that this work becomes 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:40.800 even more important considering the larger context. I guess we'll 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.200 probably talk about the Supreme Court term later later on 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.880 in this conversation. But you know, a lot of our 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:51.920 tools are getting are getting taken away or whittled away. 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.920 And I think we all know that the criminal law 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.720 in this country has for a long time, maybe always 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:06.320 been disproportionately targeted against poor people, people of color. But ostensibly, 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:11.280 what it's supposed to be about protecting us from harm, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:16.080 right keeping us safe from dangerous actors that would do 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.920 harm in our communities. And so the question we've been 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.840 asking is what if we use this system to actually 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:28.680 protect us from harm, to actually protect us from the 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:32.680 corporate actors that right now are doing damage at an 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:34.560 almost unimaginable scale. 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.240 Could you actually run through the list of potential criminal 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.000 offenses that you're looking at. 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.400 Yeah, absolutely so. As far as the sort of range 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.640 of criminal offenses that we're looking at that we're in 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:51.320 conversations with prosecutors of various source about. There's offenses like 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.800 reckless endangerment, so most states have some sort of reckless 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.960 endangerment statute that says, if you engage in reckless conduct 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:04.440 that creates a substantial unjustifiable risk of injuring or killing someone, 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:09.400 then you have committed that crime. Similarly, some states, five 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.799 or six states actually have it's kind of perfectly suited 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.159 to what we're seeing. Have make it a crime to 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.479 cause or risk catastrophe, which is it it's sort of 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.279 similar but at a larger scale to reckless endangerment, and 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.760 it's kind of hard to imagine a more apt description 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:29.760 of what Big Oil has done than caused risk. There's 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:34.200 you know, there's conspiracy and racketeering, which can be a 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:39.800 component of a lot of different prosecutions. There's there's obviously fraud, 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.280 and there could be civil fraud, but there's also criminal 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:46.600 fraud in many states based on what they said versus 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.599 what they knew. There's some some anti trust statutes have 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:55.520 criminal components, and we think, you know, anti competitive practice 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.920 is a pretty good way of describing engaging in massive 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.159 fraud and cover up specifically in order to keep the 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:07.560 technical competitors ie renewable energy sources out of the market. 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.080 So that just kind of gives you an idea, there 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.720 is a range. But having said that, I do think 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:17.680 that that homicide really does get at at a lot 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:22.960 of the moral corruption of what big oil has done. 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:25.760 And you think about the kind of incidents and the 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.000 kind of people that we do charge with homicide in 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.280 this country. My wife's a public defender, so I hear 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.120 stories every day. She had did a client earlier this 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:40.360 year who was driving in her car totally soberly with 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:45.640 her fiance and got in a crash and she was 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.320 badly injured. Her fiance was killed, so her life's like 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.520 already ruined, and and then the local DA slaps her 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.159 with a reckless homicide charge. It was a horrible case, 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.680 and my wife won, but it was like a year 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.200 and a half half of this woman's life additionally ruined. 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:05.920 The point is like, we charge a lot of folks 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:11.840 with homicide for conduct that is orders of magnitude less 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:18.440 culpable and less harmful and disastrous than what Big Oil 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.600 has knowingly done. And we're now seeing the body count 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.200 going up in real time every day from climate disasters, 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.880 whether it's hurricanes, whether it's the kind of extreme heat 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.720 waves that so many of us are currently sweating under 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.280 whether it's wildfires. You know, we could go on. We 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.480 just put out a report looking at just as one example, 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:43.200 Maricopa County its experienced last year with the July heat wave, 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:49.720 and there were over well over four hundred heat deaths 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.040 in that county in July, which is more than the 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.520 number of overall murders that the city experience. Is right, 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.800 if someone were pressing a killer heat button, I think 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.720 law enforcement would be all over trying to stop them. 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:08.280 That That's not how we've thought about these killer heat waves. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.240 We think of them as these natural disasters, but we 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.800 know right that they're not. In many cases, we have 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.520 studies saying that they would have been virtually impossible but 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.240 for human cause climate change, and we know who is 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:21.880 behind human caused climate change. 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.720 If a homicide charge were to be brought, it would 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.160 have to be brought against particular individuals, not against a 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:29.000 corporate entity. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:34.200 Is that true individuals and corporations can be charged criminally, 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.320 and indeed there's a there's a long history of corporations 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:42.760 being charged with offenses like homicide. BP pled guilty to 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:49.679 manslaughter for the deep Water Horizon Right disaster. One more 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.280 recent example that we think is really interesting. Pg Ande 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:57.959 Utility in California was convicted of negligent homicide for the 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:04.640 Paradise fire years ago in California, and I think that's 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:06.240 a really interesting example because. 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.000 It's so interesting, Wow, what. 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.520 They were found. The culpal behavior there that was found 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:17.520 to have caused those deaths was their negligent upkeep of 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.480 of equipment that ended up causing the spark that led 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.720 to that fire. But you take one step back and 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.080 the normal time, right, I think that fire was in 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.640 was in October November. Normal normally there would have been rain, 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.720 you know, many times over the previous months. That spark 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.120 would have not led to a raging inferno that killed 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.200 dozens and dozens of people. The reason that that fire 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.000 happened was what Exxon and Chevron and BP and Shell 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.720 have done, right, And so again it's you know, you 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.560 take one step back and you think about who's really 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.559 responsible for those deaths. So anyway, you asked about individual 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.920 versus corporation, so you can you could pursue both. Most 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.880 most of our focus is really looking at the corporate 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.760 entities both because there are some legal reasons why we 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.400 think that that that could be a stronger case and 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.560 because as far as remedies go, I think, you know, 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.360 the project is less about you know, throwing people in 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:21.079 jail and more about how do we get to the 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.760 root issue of the problem, and so the kinds of 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.240 solutions that could come out of this that could actually 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.600 that could actually shift those those root causes. One good 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:34.240 example of that kind of remedy the DOJ's criminal settlement 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.440 with Perdue Pharma for its role in the opioid crisis. 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:43.080 Included includes a plan to restructure Purdue as a public 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:46.719 benefit corporation that is, you know, explicitly focused in its 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.760 corporate charter on repairing the harm it did, you know, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:55.040 investing in public health solutions to to the opioid crisis. 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.880 And so you know that that's one that's one vision 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.200 for you know, you have a strong enough case and 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.880 you could potentially get to a solution where we're rewriting 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.439 a charter to say this company needs to focus on 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.600 the clean energy transition. Though there's lots of other remedies 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.200 that you could envision that could come either from a 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:17.800 criminal settlement because the companies like, we don't want to 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.720 go through this, or you know, they do go through it, 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:22.680 and there's a conviction and then there's a court order. 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:26.760 Right. Actually, I wanted to ask you about the opioid 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.520 stuff because I know people are kind of constantly saying, 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.400 why aren't the climate cases like the okaoid cases, And 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.079 I know that a lot of those cases leaned on 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.120 municipal code and this idea that the ok Good epidemic 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:44.000 was increasing costs for cities, which is certainly the case 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.319 with the climate situation. And I know that some of 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.600 the liability cases are getting it that. Could you walk 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.520 me through how these charges would be different? 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.920 Yeah, So I really interesting and important to think about 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:02.720 the difference between you know, the civil suits and civil 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.240 law in general and criminal law and these these criminal 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.840 charges that we've been proposing. And the first thing to 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.240 say is, in no way anything that we're saying to 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.320 say that, you know, we should be talking about criminal 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.079 instead of civil. The climate accountability suits, I think are 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.640 the most important thing happening right now in climate litigation, 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.439 and they're actually, you know, several of them are actually 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.800 getting past the jurisdictional phage phase into discovery, like they're 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.160 starting to bear real fruit, and that is unbelievably exciting. 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:33.160 So that's, you know, we're just saying we need to 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:37.040 be looking at everything. And there are advantages to to 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:42.640 criminal law. There's advantages to the speed. I mean criminal 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:47.160 criminal cases move a lot faster. There's advantages to discovery. 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:51.280 The state has some advantages there that a private plaintiff 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:55.440 does not. And there's advantages to the actual law. Again, 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.200 you think about how civil law has developed. It is 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.120 big corporations who are usually the defendants, right, and so 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.840 they are have been for decades, all the power and 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.200 best you know, big law lawyers in the world to 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.760 make it as hard as possible to hold civil defendants accountable, 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:16.640 as many sort of off rands, as many ways for 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.480 judges to throw out cases before you actually get to trial. 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.520 On the criminal side, you think about who's developed the law, right, 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:27.679 it's overwhelmingly poor people. People who I mean, again, my 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.160 wife's public defender some great representation, but it's not people 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:35.200 who have had the capacity to do that same kind 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.320 of work. And so in a lot of ways, I mean, 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:40.959 there's more deference to the judge in a criminal trial. 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.600 Generally it's harder to throw something out before you actually 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:46.719 get to trial. And I think we saw on the 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:51.280 Trump trial there can be something really powerful about putting 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:56.240 these questions in front of a group of twelve regular 0:13:56.280 --> 0:14:01.079 people who are tasked with making a a common sense 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:03.360 decision based on what they think is fair and just 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:07.400 about you know, is is it right to hold this 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.640 person or actor responsible for this harm. There's a lot 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.200 of systems that protect the rich and powerful incorporations in 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.880 this country from accountability for the horrible things they do. 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.880 And there's a lot of ways in which that process 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:21.160 that I just described cuts through a lot of those 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:22.320 a lot of those systems. 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:24.840 What would you have to prove? What evidence would you 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:25.840 have to bring to the table. 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.880 We just partnered with a former DOJ prosecutor. Her name 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.000 is Cindi Cho. She's spent her career doing these kinds 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:39.200 of complex prosecutions, and we partnered with her to do 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.640 what's called a prost memo or a prosecution memo. It's 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.680 basically the exercise a prosecutor does when they're deciding is 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.680 there enough evidence here to actually pursue a case? Looking 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.920 at a particular climate crisis and the evidence round it 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.680 and trying to decide, you know, analyze is there is 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:59.200 there a there there? And by the way, the conclusion 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:01.840 and it wasn't just us again, it was this long 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.480 time DOJ prosecutor was that, Yeah, there is enough here 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.880 so to prove a homicide charge. Basically, the two elements 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:14.320 in a reckless homicide. In some states it's called man manslaughter, 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:18.720 sometimes it's called second degree murder is one that the 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:23.840 defendant caused a death, so that's the causation piece. And 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:28.800 two that they had the appropriate culpable mental state in 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.040 their causing of the death. And so that's what sort 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.800 of grades the level of homicide charge. So from the 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:38.040 lowest negligent homicide, so you act neligently that caused death, 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.040 the highest is you know, first degree murder, and that's 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.240 where you acted with you know intent. So we're not 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.480 arguing that right Exxon was not doing what it did 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.040 in order to kill the dozens of people that have 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.720 died in this recent round of he waives. But as 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.480 far as reckless endangerment, acting recklessly, that's that's acting with 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.120 with knowledge risk but doing it anyway, or for for 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.720 a lot of different second degree murder charges, you need 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.280 to show that they acted with extreme indifference to human life. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:09.200 Those are what we're really looking at. 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:13.320 And so God, I'm just imagining them mounting an insanity defense. 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.520 So we did in this pros memo. We put out 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.400 prosecution memo, we did go through the different defenses that 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.280 they're likely to raise and sort of you know, analyze 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.640 the strength of them real quickly on those two elements. 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.920 So on the mental state, I'm acting either recklessly or 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.760 with extreme difference to human life. Often in a criminal prosecution, 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.040 that's the hardest thing to prove, because it's hard to 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.960 start in someone's head. In this situation, that's actually I 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.240 think very doable. Right, We have just mountains of evidence 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:49.240 in these companies' internal memos that exactly, I mean, you've 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:53.400 reported on this to such wonderful efficacy. They knew exactly 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.800 what they were doing. They were predicting, you know, to 0:16:55.880 --> 0:17:00.680 the decimal point of temperature increase. They were talking about disasters, 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.920 they're talking about sea level rise, they're talking about extreme heat. 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.280 I was just looking at a report from nineteen ninety 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:11.600 six that Exon had really describing exactly in detail the 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:16.240 kind of excess deaths from whether from heat extremes that 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.360 we're seeing right now. So anyway to show that they 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.160 knew that there was a risk at the very least 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:27.760 and that they went ahead anyway. We think that's very doable. More, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.120 just to be frank difficult piece of this is the causation. 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.399 So to show causation in a case like this, you 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:36.400 really need to prove it, and you need to prove 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.840 it beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the higher standard 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.359 for criminal prosecution. At three different stages. Right, So you 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:47.520 need to show one that this particular event, this particular 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.159 extreme weather event, whether it's an extreme heat wave or 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:55.920 something else, caused this particular death. And we think that's 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.520 pretty doable. There's a lot of public departments of health, 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.520 boards of medical examiners. They will report this was a 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.240 death due to extreme heat. Then you need to prove 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:10.720 that this extreme weather event was caused by climate change. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.840 And again that's that's the area where the rapidly developing 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.880 climate attribution science is so so important. Climate scientists can 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:25.000 now say that this disaster was made x times more likely, 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:27.439 was made x times more powerful, or would have been 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.719 virtually impossible but for climate change. And I think it's 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.840 particularly interesting in the context of again, I'm just I'm 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:36.640 really hot right now, I'm sweating, so thinking a lot 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.840 about extreme heat. But you know, in an extreme heat wave, 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:44.760 we the human body has clear thresholds right below which 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.080 you can survive and above which you get You get 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.080 one or two degrees above that threshold and you die. 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.359 And so so to show that the that climate change 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.840 even caused this particular margin that went above that threshold, 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.399 that shows that caused the death. So yeah, that's the 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:08.520 second stage. And then the third stage, probably the biggest, 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:13.560 is showing that these particular companies, and again we're looking 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:17.680 at some of the at the biggest investor owned oil 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:23.000 and gas companies, the big names ex On, Chevron, VP, Shell, Conicophillips, 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:27.960 et cetera, that they cause climate change. And that's one 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:32.280 important thing to note. In most states and most jurisdictions, 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.159 causation does not require you to have been the sole cause, 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:41.040 or even in many cases the primary cause. You need 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.639 to have been a substantial factor in contributing to that death. 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.920 And so we think, again there's plenty of evidence that 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.480 a group of particular big oil companies has been a 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:57.680 substantial factor in causing climate change, both through the actual 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.760 physics of the emissions. Right, we have source utian research 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.439 that can say this company is responsible for generating this 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:09.000 percentage of all of human caused greenhouse gas emissions, you know, 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.880 since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and then also 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:18.440 through their climate disinformation and deceit, And we think there's 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:24.000 a causative argument there that what these companies did specifically 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:28.160 in order to delay or block climate action has meant 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.600 that climate change is worse, is farther along than it 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.040 otherwise would have been. So you add those two together, 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.280 and we think there's a pretty strong argument that these 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:40.720 companies cause substantially contributed to climate change, that climate change, 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.600 you know, caused substantially contributed to this weather event, and 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.800 then that this weather event caused And we think that 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:53.359 the victims of these disasters and their families deserve justice 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.760 just as much as as the victims of any street 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:00.200 level crime. We spend a lot of time talking about 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.400 justice for people who've been wronged, but we don't think 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:06.199 about all the people being harmed from climate in the 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.160 same way. And I think we start doing that. 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.480 You touched on this a minute ago, and I want 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.520 to ask you more about it. How does this help 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:20.600 with this giant brick wall that we're facing with the 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:22.200 Supreme Court right now? 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:26.159 Yeah, I mean, really, you know, dark times in the 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:31.920 law the TLDR of this last term and lots of 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.760 terms before, but certainly what we just saw in the 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:40.160 last month is that it's it's been made a lot 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:45.240 harder for the federal government to pursue the kind of 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:51.240 regulatory actions that we need to solve climate and so 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:53.720 for us, that means it is even more important that 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:59.200 we are exploring other tools, exploring other areas of the 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.040 law that could have a big impact on this. And again, 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:04.760 criminal law is it's sort of half the law of 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:06.800 this country and it hasn't really been brought to bear. 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:13.160 Another important piece we think about the value of these 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:17.639 kinds of prosecutions that they could bring is it is 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:22.520 a lot harder, I think, for the federal courts to 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:28.639 step in when you're talking about a core police power 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.520 of a state. We've been looking, we haven't been able 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:34.840 to find a single case where a criminal law of 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:41.280 general application, that let alone homicide prosecution was preempted by 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:43.840 the federal courts. Right because again, that is a core 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:47.159 power of states and localities that they have control of 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:53.000 criminal law. And it's not to say that the Supreme 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:55.800 Court has made clear that they don't give a shit 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.439 about what the law actually is. And so it's not 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:02.919 to say that would not be able to make up 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:05.000 new law from whole cloth in order to try to 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.480 stop something like this, but certainly it's a lot harder, right, 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:10.520 they would have to make it up from whole cloth. 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:14.840 This is a core state and local jurisdiction thing, and 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:18.239 there's no precedent for the federal courts coming in and 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.600 taking it and squashing it. So yeah, to the degree, 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:24.720 to the degree we can use the courts on climate, 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:28.080 we think this is one of the ways to ensure 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.840 that states and localities actually can have a voice, because again, 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.720 there's nothing more core to a to a local da 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:40.920 than being able to prosecute homicides that occurred in their jurisdiction. 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:48.040 Yeah, okay, shifting gears. I want to ask your thoughts 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:52.080 on Supreme Court stuff as well. So, God, where to begin? 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:54.520 Can I have you give me like your sort of 0:23:54.920 --> 0:24:01.639 quick and simple explanation of the impact of chucking Chevron deference. 0:24:03.240 --> 0:24:07.679 Yeah, it's not good. I mean it's the quick and 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:10.760 dirty of the Chevron decision is that it is another 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:15.280 massive judicial power grab. It is taking an immense amount 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:21.000 of power out of the hands of actual experts in 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:25.280 administrative agencies, people who have been doing whatever work, whether 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:29.359 it's on environment, whether it's on health and medicine, whether 0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:32.159 it's on economics, you know, whatever it is. We've got 0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:33.960 a lot of smart people in government. They've been doing 0:24:33.960 --> 0:24:36.800 this with their whole careers. We are saying they don't 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:39.920 get to decide anything, even if Congress has very clearly 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:44.240 said you get to decide this, And we're putting that 0:24:44.359 --> 0:24:48.520 power in the hands of frankly, some of the worst 0:24:48.720 --> 0:24:52.439 and dumbest people in the world. And I'm talking about 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:57.840 like twenty five year old law school grad like fedsock twerps. 0:24:58.320 --> 0:25:03.320 You know, these are these are the law clerks, conservative 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:07.439 justices who write the actual opinions. I clerked for a judge. 0:25:07.720 --> 0:25:09.800 These are the people who write the opinions. And these 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:13.240 are kids who like went right from college to law school, 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:16.520 did not do anything in law school to open their minds, right, 0:25:16.560 --> 0:25:19.560 They spent the whole time in like conservative fed sock 0:25:19.720 --> 0:25:24.320 circle jerk meetings, and then they're asked to like they're 0:25:24.359 --> 0:25:28.240 given the power to make these immense decisions about the 0:25:28.359 --> 0:25:33.040 environment and economics and health and and occupational safety and 0:25:33.680 --> 0:25:37.840 everything else. Having zero expertise. I went to law school 0:25:37.840 --> 0:25:41.160 with these people. They're not they're not smart, they're not good, 0:25:41.680 --> 0:25:45.879 and they don't have that capacity to make to do 0:25:45.920 --> 0:25:49.119 good analysis on any of these questions. So it's a 0:25:49.160 --> 0:25:52.760