Exxon Mobil is intended to sue the state of California over 2023 climate disclosure laws that the company claims infringe its freedom of speech, specifically by compelling the company to adopt the message that big corporations uniquely cause climate change.
The Texas-based oil and gas company filed its complaint on Friday in the U.S. Eastern District Court of California. It requests the court to halt the enactment of the laws next year.
ExxonMobil, in its complaint, claims that for years it has publicly reported its greenhouse gas emissions and business risks, but it is fundamentally opposed to the new reporting demands of the state.
The company reports it might have utilized the “frameworks that place disproportionate blame on large companies like ExxonMobil” to put disproportionate blame on major companies.
The Senate Bill, which is under the title of 253, will require the large businesses to reveal extensive amounts of planet-warming emissions, both direct and indirect, such as the expenses of employee business travel and product transportation.
Eventually, the complaint indicated that ExxonMobil complains about the approach that the state would demand, which would make the emissions of a company trying to be global in scope, and hence would fault businesses simply because they are large, as opposed to being efficient.
The second law, Senate Bill 261, calls on companies that generate above $500 million annually to reveal the financial risks that climate change has on their businesses and how they intend to deal with them.
In its complaint, the company claimed that the law would compel it to make “about unknowable future developments” and post such speculations on its website.
In an email, a spokesperson to the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom said, “truly shocking that one of the biggest polluters on the planet would be opposed to transparency.”
