Exxon Mobil Corporation and two related entities (ExxonMobil) asked the federal district court for the District of Massachusetts to dismiss a citizen suit brought pursuant to the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in connection with ExxonMobil’s operation of a marine distribution terminal in Massachusetts. ExxonMobil argued that the plaintiff, Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), lacked standing because the climate change impacts alleged by CLF were speculative and too far in the future to satisfy standing requirements. For the same reason, ExxonMobil said that CLF’s allegations failed to allege the “imminent and substantial endangerment” necessary to state a RCRA claim. ExxonMobil also argued that CLF’s climate change-related Clean Water Act claims were jurisdictionally and facially defective because EPA had clearly taken the position that remote and speculative climate change impacts did not need to be considered with respect to NPDES permits, Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans, and Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) plans. In addition, ExxonMobil contended that CLF did not state valid non-climate change Clean Water Act claims. ExxonMobil also said that the court did not have subject matter jurisdiction to consider the claim that the SPCC plans for the terminal should consider climate change because the Clean Water Act’s citizen suit provision did not encompass such a claim.

Citizen suit alleging violations of RCRA and Clean Water Act for failure to take action to prepare marine terminal for climate change.

Conservation Law Foundation v. ExxonMobil Corp.

<p>This entry was provided by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Please see the terms of use for citation and licensing of third party data.</p>

ExxonMobil Sought Dismissal of Climate Change Citizen Suit Alleging RCRA and Clean Water Act Violations at Massachusetts Marine Terminal

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ExxonMobil Sought Dismissal of Climate Change Citizen Suit Alleging RCRA and Clean Water Act Violations at Massachusetts Marine Terminal

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Risk

Fossil fuel

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience