The Los Angeles wildfires — and the president’s environmental rollbacks — could spur more lawsuits to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate change.
“If you are an environmentally conscious community who believes that your rights are being violated by the fossil fuel industry, you’re not going to get any help from the federal government,” said Jeffrey Simon, who is representing Multnomah County, Oregon, in a climate lawsuit against the oil industry.
Simon — founding shareholder of the Texas-based personal injury law firm Simon, Greenstone and Panatier — said that in situations in which “some level of regulation failed to adequately protect the public, only the civil justice system provided a potential remedy.”