Exxon Mobil is suing the state of California over a pair of 2023 climate disclosure laws. The oil company revealed that laws are a clear infringement upon its free speech rights.
Under Senate Bill 253, large businesses will have to disclose a wide range of planet-warming emissions henceforth, including both direct and indirect emissions like the costs of employee business travel and product transport.
The oil and gas corporation based in Texas recently filed a complaint in the U.S. Eastern District Court for California, stating that the laws force it to accept the message that large companies are solely to blame for climate change.
Asking the court to prevent the laws from going into effect in 2026, Exxon Mobil said that it has publicly disclosed its greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related business risks over the years, hence its decision to disagree with the state’s new reporting requirements.
Exxon Mobil disclosed that it does not agree with the methodology required by California because it focuses on a company’s emissions globally and would therefore fault businesses just for being large, as opposed to being efficient.
The second law, Senate Bill 261, requires companies making over $500 million yearly to announce the financial risks that climate change poses to their businesses and how they plan to tackle them.
In its complaint, the company insisted that the law would require it to speculate “about unknowable future developments” before posting such speculations on its official website.
Responding, a spokesperson for the office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom confirmed in an email that it is “truly shocking that one of the biggest polluters on the planet would be opposed to transparency.”
