AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey is suing several oil- and gas-producing companies, alleging they lied about the impact of fossil fuels for decades.
Frey announced the court filing on Tuesday. Companies listed in the complaint include Shell, Chevron, BP, Sunoco, Exxon, and the American Petroleum Institute, which is a trade association involved in the oil and gas industry.
The attorney general accuses the companies of hiding and failing to warn Mainers about how fossil fuel products contributed to climate change and damage to the state's environment.
Frey claims the companies have known about the effects fossil fuels could have on the climate since the 1960s but hid that knowledge in order to make more money.
"We need to hold the oil companies accountable for their deception, their misrepresentation about what their product was doing, and their misleading Mainers about what it is that their science was showing was happening, which is that their product was causing global warming," Frey told NEWS CENTER Maine on Tuesday.
The lawsuit alleges that the companies violated Maine laws and claims that the American Petroleum Institute "aided and abetted" the companies' conduct.
Frey said another goal of the lawsuit is to place the cost of past and future negative impacts on Maine's climate onto the fossil fuel companies.
Read the full lawsuit here