By Allison Kite, Kansas Reflector
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach hopes to intervene in a lawsuit accusing major plastics manufacturers of engaging in a “decades-long campaign of fraud and deception” about the feasibility of recycling.
A group of U.S. residents who have purchased plastic products, along with officials in Ford County, Kansas, filed the lawsuit in December. The lawsuit names ExxonMobil, Chevron, other plastics manufacturers and an industry group as defendants.
“Plastic pollution is one of the most serious environmental crises facing the world today,” an amended complaint filed last month by the plaintiffs says.
But Kobach’s office argued in a motion to intervene, filed earlier this week, that the county is attempting to usurp the Attorney General’s Office’s authority. Kobach asked to intervene for the purposes of filing a motion to dismiss Ford County’s claims.
While Kobach’s filing focuses on whether the county has the authority to bring its case, he took issue with the underlying allegations of the lawsuit in a press release issued Wednesday.
“Left-wing environmentalist attorneys have hijacked Ford County and are using the county to push a radical, anti-oil agenda,” Kobach said. “If this abuse is allowed to stand then any county in America could launch any number of attacks to cripple American energy production.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs did not immediately return a request for comment.
Ford County initially sued ExxonMobil, Chevron and others last year in U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, claiming that plastics manufacturers and industry promoters lied about the recyclability of plastic, resulting in a waste crisis.
The original case was dismissed and a similar case filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri with both Ford County and individual plaintiffs.
The complaint seeks damages and an injunction to bar the companies from advertising plastic products as recyclable. It says that between 1950 and 2015, more than 90% of plastics were “landfilled, incinerated or leaked into the environment.”
“Plastic waste is ubiquitous — from our rivers, lakes and oceans to roadways and coastlines,” the lawsuit says.
While manufacturers knew recycling was “neither technically nor economically viable,” the lawsuit says, they “engaged in fraudulent marketing and deceptive public education campaigns” to promote it as a solution to plastic waste.
The companies have successfully protected their plastic production and stalled government efforts to address plastic waste, the lawsuit says.
“Fossil fuel and other petrochemical companies have used the false promise of plastic recycling to exponentially increase virgin plastic production over the last six decades, creating and perpetuating the global plastic waste crisis and imposing significant costs on communities that are left to pay for the consequences,” the complaint says.
The lawsuit says plaintiffs seek to hold plastic producers accountable where government has failed and calls the problems outlined in the complaint “a national crisis” that requires a 50-state solution “to stamp out their nationwide scheme.”
But Kobach’s motion claims Ford County lacks the legal authority to represent states and their political subdivisions.
“Ford County — an entity created by Kansas with limited authority — is fundamentally undermining Kansas’ sovereignty in this action,” the motion says. “Kansas does not currently possess enough credible information to assess Ford County’s underlying claims and determine whether a (legitimate) statewide suit is needed, but Kansas seeks intervention to protect its ability to make similar factual allegations and claims against the plastics defendants if Kansas determines that any such claims exist.”
Kobach’s filing says the state would seek to dismiss Ford County’s complaint “without prejudice,” meaning it could be filed again “because Kansas may choose to bring or participate in a legitimate ‘national, 50-state solution’ ‘to hold plastics producers and manufacturers accountable’ if or when concrete facts show violations of Kansas or federal law.”
Chevron’s attorney — Theodore Boutrous, Jr., of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP — said in a statement that the lawsuit “fails to include a single allegation of wrongdoing by Chevron.”
“From the face of the complaint, it is apparent that there is no basis for Chevron to be in this baseless lawsuit,” Boutrous said.
Ross Eisenberg, president of America’s Plastic Makers, which is affiliated with the American Chemistry Council, said the complaint includes claims that “are inaccurate, misleading and out of date.”
